


Nobody Does It Better

by Littlewinns



Series: Stirred, Not Shaken [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Big Sister Alex Danvers, Brief Descriptions Of Abusive Behaviors, Canon compliant - up to 2x22, Gen, Grandmaster Lena, It's a buddy movie type thing, It's not irrelevant it's just not happening, Lena Luthor is an Olympian, Not a romance, She's also scared of spiders, Winn deserves some self-respect, Winn is a polyglot genius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2018-12-04 15:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11557815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlewinns/pseuds/Littlewinns
Summary: Winn's been going back-and-forth to L-Corp for six weeks, working with Lena to get the transmatter portal dismantled and into DEO custody. And everything's going great......until Winn says something he shouldn't have. And now, he's going to be in SO much trouble.The Winn/Lena buddy space-adventure fic that, quite literally, no one asked for.





	1. What He Said

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a Winn story, 'cause there aren't that many (and it's my thing); and I wanted to write Action!Lena (in several chapters time), because it's so much fun. 
> 
> For those of you who worry about such things: no, Lena's not going to fall in love with him; no, they are not going to make out. Worry not.

He was so screwed.

It had been six weeks since Winn had been assigned as DEO liaison to L-Corp, overseeing the decommissioning and dismantling of their newly built, Daxamite-invasion-causing transmatter portal. Everything, and J'onn J'onzz had been clear about this, _everything_ , had to be collected and expunged. There could be no trace, no record, no evidence left behind that the thing had ever been built; and anyone involved in the project had to sign NDAs prohibiting them from discussing, replicating, or even re-purposing, any knowledge they might have gained from off-worlders. Most of the laws regarding astro-tech hadn't been written yet, but J'onn took a broad approach: if you weren't smart enough to figure it out for yourself, you weren't smart enough to use it wisely.

Lena Luthor had not reacted well to being told she wasn't smart enough to do... well, anything she damn well pleased, really. As death glares went, she could easily win a national title, maybe even qualify for the international competition; but she still needed a good few years practice before she'd able to beat the World Class glare Cat Grant employed everyday, so Winn shrugged it off.

Normally, operations like this would be handled by Alex, since she was actually a field agent, and could provide... incentive to those who weren't initially willing to co-operate. But J'onn had felt that, as Winn had already revealed himself to Lena as a DEO agent, as well as being, arguably, the world's leading authority on transmatter portals (he was, as far as anyone knew, the only human to have used one under practical conditions), that Winn would be best suited to the job.

"Don't screw up," Alex had said, by way of encouragement. 

So, he'd gone to Lena's office and laid out what needed to be done, and why, and what the penalties would be if it wasn't, and after her initial disagreement to the process, she turned to pragmatism, and offered all the help that she could; so now they met in Lena's office, five or six times a week, to discuss what still needed doing, and making sure it got done.

Working with Lena was... relaxing, somehow. It was never _relaxed_ \- there was so much to do, and neither one of them particularly wanted to dither - but they worked fast, they worked well, and, unusually for Winn, they worked _together_. Normally, Winn was left to get on with things by himself until someone happened to need whatever it was they'd asked for.

But Winn and Lena worked side-by-side. They were almost always on the same page, which was rare in itself, as there weren't that many people even reading the same book as them. Winn had, at one point, realized they'd had a ten-minute conversation about the eleven-dimensional harmonics of 'theoretical' inter-universe travel, without either of them really having to think about it. He'd had to stop himself before revealing that the Multi-verse wasn't all that theoretical.

If only he'd done that _this_ time...

The workload was huge, but Winn welcomed the distraction. It had been thirty-three days since Lyra had moved out. Winn had tried to explain to her, as calmly as he could, that no, she could not go get a cat from the rescue centre as a special dinner treat; and she had, not unexpectedly, thrown a plate at his head, missing by inches, and smashing against the wall. It hadn't been the first thing she'd thrown at him in a rage; but, for some reason, this time, he didn't feel like sticking around to find out if she'd try again.

He'd gone around to Kara's, found that he'd interrupted sister night, and then tried his very best to leave before Kara and Alex... well, Alex, really, made him tell them what happened.

He was not successful.

He had tried to explain that it wasn't Lyra's fault, she wasn't in control of herself when she was like this, but Alex was having none of it, and stormed out. He'd tried to follow her, but Kara stopped him. He didn't know what he was going to do about Lyra, but he knew that he didn't want her to get hurt.

Kara quickly made him some ice cream - which is a neat trick, if you've got some liquid nitrogen, or a friend with Freeze Breath - and then put on a movie, which they both ignored; he talked about Lyra, and she talked about Mon-El, and they'd both cried and hugged. That night, he slept on Kara's couch; and, after stopping at the rescue centre to adopt a grey cat with spots down the side - either as a gesture of defiance or as a piece offering, Winn was ashamed to say he didn't know which - he returned to his apartment to find Lyra, and all of her things, had gone. She'd clearly left in a hurry; there were drawers still open, the bedroom was a terrible mess. Winn had been relieved that there wasn't any blood.

Then he saw she'd left without her night-light. That really bothered him. He'd bought that for her. He'd searched all over for a little blue bird night-light. When he'd found it, he'd explained to Lyra that it was a canary, and why that was important, and then they'd danced around the kitchen to the They Might Be Giants song.

She wouldn't be able to sleep without her night-light.

He'd tried to call her - so he could give it back to her, you understand - but there was no answer; Winn had even gone to where her brother lived, but he'd gone too - in even more of a hurry than she had, apparently. So Winn carried the night-light around, in his bag, just in case he ran into her in the street, or at the bar. But there was no sign of her.

He'd named the cat Jadzia.

Life had carried on, as it always had before. There were still game nights to be played and won, laddered tights to be mended, Guardians to be... Winn didn't know what the verb was for whatever it was he did in the van, but it needed doing, all the same. J'onn had seemed impressed with the rate at which the L-Corp project was being completed, which was good. And, after rumours of rogue Kryptonians operating again, Winn had gotten the go-ahead to try using red-sun radiation as a defence instead of Kryptonite; he hadn't gotten it to work yet, but he was getting there. Professionally, at least, everything was going just fine.

Until about... nine or ten hours ago.

He'd been at L-Corp, explaining to Lena, in extensive detail, the process for opening a wormhole without there being a portal on the other side, and that _he'd_ done it himself, and when she'd followed up to discern when he'd had the opportunity to use a transmatter portal, _he'd_ said-

"We have one at the DEO."

Yeah. That was where he went wrong.

"You... have a transmatter portal? At the DEO?" Lena said.

"Yes. Yes, we do, Ms. Luthor," he said, speaking way too quickly.

"We're still doing this?" she said. Lena had told him on several occasions that he could use her first name, but Winn had felt it was important to maintain her authority on the project, especially in front of her employees.

"I'm on DEO business, Ms. Luthor," he said. 

She sighed, as she often had when he was being officious, and asked, with a hint of incredulousness, "Where is it?"

"In the lab. It's not very big, about the size of a big garage door," he replied. "It's pretty much the size most of them are, you now, it's not like..." he trailed off, adding a wavy hand gesture intended to convey, without using the actual words, that building a prototype large enough to allow an _armada_ to pass through was, even from a simple practicality standpoint, kind of insane.

"And you've used it? To go to other planets?" she asked.

"Well, yeah. Well, no. Just the one time. And it was a moon, really. But I did open a portal onto the Daxamite ship, the first time it was here. I'm, like, the expert. That's kinda why I'm here, doing this." he said.

Lena sat down at her desk, twirled her pen in her hands, absentmindedly. "What's that like?" she asked.

"Going through the portal?" he asked.

"Stepping out onto another world," she answered.

"It's very..." he thought for a few moments, "...anti-climactic?"

Lena laughed, confused, "Ok?"

Her laughter set him off laughing too, "No, no, no, I didn't mean- It's just-" He sat down in the chair opposite her, so he wasn't standing over her.

"You're in this warehouse, right? And there's this... Einstein-Rosen bridge, you know? Right in front of you! And you've gotta walk through it. And you're nervous, but you're not sure if that's 'cause of what's in front of you, or 'cause you've got to wear the tactical gear-

Lena was kind of rolling her head at this point, like she was waiting for him to get back to the topic at hand. Winn changed gears.

"-It's a long story, it's not important. So, anyway, you walk through the portal, and then... it's a desert. Ok, it's a desert at night, there's a... natural beauty there, but nothing you can't see a hundred yards off the interstate. So, you think nothing of it, except... 'I'm in space'. And then you look up, and there's... stars. And you spend a few moments, kind of on auto-pilot, trying to put together constellations, you know, as you do; and then you realise that you _can't_ , because they're _different stars_ , and more than that, one of them's _that one_ -" he pointed out the window behind her, toward the sun, "- and it's shining a light that's been travelling for longer than... than the Pyramids have existed, and you think... What now?"

"I'm sorry?" Lena asked.

"What now? Okay, you've learned this thing, but... then what? It's TOO BIG. There's TOO MUCH information. This one thing shows you the actual scale of stuff you've been thinking about for years, and you don't know what you're supposed to do next. It's kind of..." he trailed off.

"Humbling?" Lena said.

"Pretty much, yeah," Winn replied.

"It sounds amazing," she said, wistfully.

"It really is. You would love it."

Okay, maybe _that_ was the thing he shouldn't have said.

"Yes, I imagine that I would," Lena said.

And then she smiled.

"Yeah. Wait, what?" Winn said, when he saw her face. He'd seen that smile on her before. That was not a good smile.

"I didn't say anything," she replied, earnestly. But The Smile was still there.

Winn had first seen The Smile sometime late in the first week. He'd been waiting in her office, admiring what he would soon learn was the Luthor family chessboard. She'd come in; and, in one of the only two occasions they'd ever discussed something that wasn't at least work _related_ , she'd asked Winn if he played. He didn't. Well, he did - he knew all the rules - but the whole thinking-ten-moves-in-advance strategic thinking thing was something he'd never been able to get the hang of. After he'd explained this to her, she'd smiled The Smile, and asked, ever so innocently, "Would you like to play?"

What followed had been the most humilating fifty-two seconds of Winn's life. If she'd beaten him any harder, he would have been a smoldering crater.

If she was smiling now, it didn't mean she was playing a game with him. The game had already been won. He just had to figure out what it-

Winn's eyes widened, protesting, "No. No, I can't."

"Can't what?" she asked. Still smiling.

"I can't take you on a trip to Slaver's Moon!" Winn said.

"I wasn't suggesting that you would. In fact, Slaver's Moon... that sounds like it would be very risky." she said.

"It is. It's incredibly dangerous." he said.

"Then I probably shouldn't go there." she said, as innocent as can be.

"Plus, you know, I could lose my job."

"Well, I would never want you to do anything that could jeopardise your career, Toyman." That had been the _other_ personal conversation they'd had. Lena had looked him up on Google, gotten the results for his father, and Winn had then spent a fun and educational half-hour describing to her how his mass-murdering parent had escaped custody, kidnapped him, and then attempted to dragoon him into being part of his diabolical scheme.

Lena could relate.

But she also wasn't above using it to throw him off-balance. 

"That's good to hear," Winn said, trying to stay focused, "So we're agreed?" 

"We always were." she said, in a 'No Arguments Here' tone.

"Yes?"

"We are on the same page." You're The Boss, Boss.

"Good," Winn said, confirming to himself, "Good."

It _was_ good. It was better than good. One of the most powerful people in the world, well-practiced at negotiating with other, equally high-stakes players, and he'd managed to stand his ground.

He was absolutely, definitely, NOT taking her to Slaver's Moon.

Which, of course, was why he was here, now, at two in the morning, trying to break Lena Luthor into the DEO.


	2. Stirred, Not Shaken

He was definitely going to get fired.

If J'onn J'onzz was there, and he read Winn's mind, he was going to get fired.

If Kara was there, and she saw Lena with her x-ray vision, or heard her with her super hearing, he was going to get fired.

If Kara was there, and she was in _her street clothes_ , then... well, then there was going to be an awkward pause. Then an inconvenient, but long overdue conversation. Then a massive fight. And _then_ he was going to get fired.

Well, it was a good thing he had contacts in the private sector; among them, the woman standing next to him, in one of the relatively all-access areas of the DEO building, waiting, not-very-patiently, for him to complete his hack.

"Is it strange for you to be breaking into your own security?" Lena asked.

"There's no such thing as security," Winn said, automatically.

"That doesn't sound entirely correct," Lena said, skeptical.

"Nope. No such thing as security, only different levels of inconvenience," he said. Security was a useful catch-all term, sure, but it gave a false sense of... security. If it was possible for an authorised person to access whatever it was you were trying to keep hidden; then, with enough effort, it was possible for an unauthorised person to get at it as well. It was just inconvenient.

And the DEO system was _very_ inconvenient. Of course it was, he'd designed it to be so. Most of the DEO system break-ins over the last two years had been by him. He'd felt duty bound to give them an upgrade.

The physical break-ins had been harder to fix. The White Martians... okay, the White Martian thing, he hadn't figured out yet. Twelve-foot-tall genocidal psychic changelings could pretty much force their way through any countermeasures you might have put in place to stop them; and, although J'onn had originally been kind of adamant that they set up a fire trap at all entrances and exits, Winn had managed to convince him that open flames at the exits would be, if not more dangerous, then at least a more frequent threat than the White Martians would.

But other intruders were a different story. Winn had set up facial _and_ species recognition on the DEO security cameras. If they saw you, and you weren't authorised, then the alarms would sound. There were 'guests', of course - prisoners or medical emergencies, mostly, plus the weird glitch where the system wouldn't recognise Kara when she had her glasses on - but guests would be tagged by security on the way in, and the Director's office notified immediately of their presence, for identification and approval.

So, no, Lena couldn't go in as a guest. She'd have to be on file. Any new profiles would have to go through both the Director's office _and_ HR for approval before going on the system; but, once the profile was approved, it would actually get entered into the system by someone else. Namely, it'd be done by Winn. So, all he really had to do was break into the system from outside, and fake two permissions. This was something he'd have to safeguard against later, if he managed to pull it off at all.

It wasn't easy, but he could do it. After all, nobody does it better.

"The Spy Who Loved Me?" Lena asked, eyebrow raised.

"What? What are you talking about?" Winn replied. How did she know?

"You hum the music under your breath sometimes, when you're concentrating," Lena said, checking her watch.

Winn froze, momentarily. Of all the things that could go wrong tonight, he hadn't considered he'd reveal to Lena that he'd picked a theme song for himself.

"Spy Who Loved Me rules. You got Jaws... the underwater car... Barbara Bach..." Winn said, wistfully drifting off. Hmm, Barbara Bach...

"It's Roger Moore." Lena said.

"Nothing wrong with Roger Moore," Winn said, "He's better than George Lazenby."

"Well, that's not really-" Lena stopped, realising what he'd said. "You guys really do an extensive background check, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, we do, but we don't check your Netflix queue, Ah!" Winn said, having finally broken the firewall into the main system.

"Really? Then how did you know I like On Her Majesty's Secret Service?" she asked.

"Come on," he said, "you totally see yourself as Diana Rigg." Director approval done...

"You don't know. I might be a Vesper," she said.

"You'd never be Vesper," he said. 

With HR approval secured, Winn entered Lena's new, fake profile into the recognition system, and suddenly realised he was working in unexpected silence. All the time they'd been working together, they'd never really done silence before. It was disconcerting.

"We're agreed about Diamonds Are Forever, right?" he asked.

"Great song, everything else is terrible?" she said, just making sure.

"Good to know." Winn got the confirmation that the profile was on the system, and disconnected himself. "Let's go."

 

Many of the entrances to the main DEO floor were guarded, but not all, particularly at this time of night. They used the entrance at the south-west corner: it only required a high-level access pass, which Winn legitimately had; not only that, it was the most hidden route to the transmatter portal. Now that they were in, as long as facial recognition decided that Lena belonged there, no-one should be any the wiser.

Until they made the ten yard walk, right through Central Ops, where everyone would see them.

Winn had told her to wear all-black. Practical clothing. Everyone else wore it. Lena had followed his recommendation to the letter; tactical black boots; black pants; a not-baggy black shirt with long sleeves; pony tail. No one would notice another agent on their way somewhere. Hell, Lena looked like she belonged there more than he did.

It wasn't until they got into the better-lit corridor on the way to the lobby that Winn noticed a problem.

"Can you like, I dunno, slouch or something?" Winn asked in a whisper.

"What? Why?" Lena asked, confused.

It was hard to explain. Lena would protest, not-infrequently, that she wasn't like other Luthors, but that meant different things to different people. While she didn't share the proclivity toward mass-murder that infected the rest of the current crop, the blood of ten generations blessed with money and power still flowed through her veins, and that wasn't something you could disguise in an outfit. She had _presence_ ; and it didn't just draw attention, it _commanded_ it. As far as going incognito was concerned, it was kind of inconvenient.

"Can you just-" Winn begged, nervously. Lena, not really understanding, hunched her shoulders, and they took a few steps together before Winn gestured for her to stop..

"Never mind." Winn said. He was going to get fired anyway, and the slouch wasn't really making any difference. Standing up straight, she was The Owner Of All Creation; 'slouching' meant she was The Owner Of All Creation doing a silly walk. This was how ridiculous trends got started.

They reached the end of the corridor, and Winn stopped.

"Okay, Ms. Luthor, I'm gonna need you to wait here." Winn said.

"You know what, Winn? I appreciate you're trying to show respect, but we're _definitely_ not here on official business right now-" Lena said.

"Yeah, I know, but you're my guest. Now, there'll be a lot of people in that room, and I need to check it out first. When I say, walk out, turn left, and then it's the second corridor on your left. I will be following you ten seconds behind," he said. "Try to look like you know where you're going," he added, redundantly; he couldn't imagine a Luthor ever really feeling like they'd lost their way. Any directionlessness they might experience would clearly be the fault of geography.

"It'll be fine," he said.

"I'm not worried," Lena said.

"I wasn't trying to reassure you, Ms. Luthor. But thanks," he said, and walked out into Central Ops.

 

Winn walked out into his workplace in a manner he never had before. He looked around, worried about who he might find. There was a skeleton staff on duty, a lot of familiar faces, but no friends: Vasquez wasn't here; Bonnie and Ginger, who worked the desks next to him, weren't here; most importantly, J'onn and Kara weren't here. This was good. The coast was clear.

He turned around to call for Lena.

"Hey!" Winn heard the voice behind him, and spun back around in shock.

"Hey," he said. Alex. How had he forgotten about Alex?

"What are you doin' here?" Alex asked. There was good news and bad news here. The good news was the chances of him fired had gone down, to 98, maybe even as low as 97%. The bad news was his return to the private sector would be severely impaired after Alex had broken all of his fingers.

"Ohhhh, you know, couldn't sleep," he said, being glad he'd practiced this in the mirror before heading here, "Thought I'd get back to work on the Sun Gun. You?" 

"Night shift. You still thinking about Lyra?" Alex asked, concerned.

"No. Well, yeah, it's not great, but it happened, and I'm getting there. It's not a big deal," he said. It was nice Alex was worried about him, but there was some stuff he didn't really want to talk about where Lena could hear.

"Not a big deal," Alex repeated, with a hint of skepticism, "So you're OK?"

"Pretty much," he said.

"How's it goin' at L-Corp? Nearly done?"

"A week or so, maybe," Winn said, "it's-"

"What's your read on her?" Alex asked. She wasn't using her small talk voice anymore.

"On who?" Winn said, like he didn't already know.

"Lena Luthor," Alex said.

Oh boy. Winn thought about just how long Lena had been waiting in that corridor, and how anyone could walk past right now.

"Am I really the best person to ask?" Winn asked, stalling.

"No," Alex said, "But you'll never get anything but a diplomatic answer out of Kara. Unless, of course, there's a hundred year old blood feud between Kryp-"

"What did you wanna know?" Winn spat out. Talking about Kara right now was bad enough. Talking about _Kryptonians_ in the same sentence was going to lead to questions later that he couldn't answer; or at least, not to Lena's satisfaction.

Alex shrugged. "What's she like?"

Winn shook his head. He needed more to go on.

"She funny? Down to earth? Head up her ass? Anything like that."

Winn considered his answers, probably for too long.

"Well, she's impressed with herself, sure, but she just invented interstellar travel, there's a lot to be impressed by; funny? I mean, I wouldn't put her on at the Improv, but she's got a way with a phrase..." Winn struggled for the next answer, then gave up.

"You know what? It's all relative; but I know a lot of rich people, and sometimes it's like they're from another planet," Winn said, finally.

He felt guilty about that last one, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Even James, his best friend, sometimes had trouble remembering that other people - who weren't paid seven figures a year, and didn't own copyright on some of the most reproduced photographs on the planet - simply didn't have as much money as him; and couldn't afford to pay for, say, military-grade titanium-alloy combat armour out of their own pocket.

"D'you like her?" Alex asked.

"Um... she's personable, sure... I don't agree with her approach to prototype testing..." Winn thought back to the transmatter portal, the one they were taking from L-Corp. He admired the Ozymandian scale of the thing, the whole 'look upon my mighty works, and despair' vibe, but maybe build a small one first, move a small object across the room? On the other hand, she hadn't checked the black-body field generator worked at all until she was actually trying to spring her trap; so, if anything, she was improving.

Alex raised her eyebrows. She was going to need more.

"She's in greater need of a Jim Steinman mixtape than anyone I've ever met, but as far as I'm concerned, she's good people," Winn said, decisively. This had gone on too long. They were never going to make it. He had to bail on this as soon as possible, take Lena back out, and pretend he'd never let her talk him into it.

"A mixtape?" Alex asked, smirking.

"Steinman, or Phil Collins; something that lends itself to air instruments," Winn said.

"Well, it's good that you wanna help her out with that," Alex said, accepting his answer, but with an odd expression; like she'd just won a small wager.

"Cool. I'm gonna..." Winn pointed him thumb back out the way he came in, toward where Lena - and freedom - could be found . Abort mission; mission failed.

"You ever gonna get that thing working?" Alex asked, derisively. And Winn, like an idiot, took the bait.

"You know, it's not actually that easy. Unless you wanted to lend me your sidearm? I could scan it, take it apart, figure out how it actually works..." Winn said. He knew she would never go for it. Alex had acquired her pistol on their previous trip to Slaver's Moon, and had made sure that everyone knew it was hers, and hers alone.

"If you think it'll help..." she said, unbuttoning her holster.

"Really?" Winn said, hopefully, briefly forgetting his haste to leave.

"Not a chance," she said, laughing. She started walking away. "I'm going to the kitchen. You want anything?"

Winn shook his head, "Nah, I'm good."

"Suit yourself," she said, and headed out toward the other side of the room.

Winn sauntered back to where Lena had been waiting, watching Alex the whole time.

"Still there?" he asked.

" _Yesss_ ," Lena hissed from around the corner.

Winn waited until Alex was out of the door. 

"GO!" Winn said, in the loudest whisper he could muster.

Lena silently rounded the corner, and Winn watched, as she strolled, authoritatively, the ten yards towards the correct exit. 

Not a single person looked up at her. Winn wouldn't have dared, if he'd been one of them. He'd seen Alex herself walk like that, and it would not have been wise to stop her if she was. Lena probably could have ordered a couple of agents to come with them as back-up, if she'd wanted to. Best not to risk it, though.

Ten seconds after she'd entered Central Ops, Winn followed behind, at a far more casual pace. They were nearly there.


	3. The Spare Oom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern Pentathon is an Olympic event combining swimming, fencing, showjumping, pistol-shooting, and cross-country running; intended to emulate the skills required of a 19th century cavalryman. Horses are randomly drawn 20 minutes before the event starts.
> 
> And I assure you, Dogtanian And The Muskehounds was a Real Thing.

The transmatter portal was kept in a lab at the far end of the other hallway. The lab's official designation, as stated on the plastic laminate sign that was screwed onto the door, was J-31. Underneath the sign, there was a sheet of white letter-sized paper, attached with electrical tape; and printed upon it, in what Winn had felt was an appropriate font, were the words 'SPARE OOM'.

Winn locked the door behind them, and hit the switch for the nearest lights. They were safe. No-one would come in here. Nobody else could. The only other person with access to the lab when it was locked was J'onn, and that was only because he could walk through walls.

"I know her," Lena said.

"Who?" Winn asked.

"Your boss. I know her. I'm friends with her sister."

Crap. He'd been avoiding this, he knew. This would be weird, wouldn't it? He just _happened_ to work with Supergirl, and just _happened_ to be really good friends with Kara Danvers, and neither he, nor, it seemed, Kara, had brought it up with Lena at any time in the past six weeks? Or, you know, ever?

That wasn't something people did, was it?

"She's not my boss," Winn said, in a poor attempt to change the subject, switching on all the lights to distract himself; and then, when he saw that it wasn't working, he said, "Yeah, I know Kara."

"How?" Lena said, leaving a pause for Winn to fill. She liked to do that. The lack of silences between them was largely due to Lena asking an open ended question, and letting Winn fill up the space.

"Well, I used to work at Catco with her, back when she was an assistant; but then, Alex needed a... consultant on... an infosec problem she was having, and then they called me in for a couple more things, and then they offered me a job," he said, nervously. He tried to reassure himself that it was, in fact, _mostly_ true.

He gestured towards the large, fluidly-designed oval archway as the lights came on.

"Ms. Luthor, may I present to you... Project Ward Robe!" he said in presentation. Then he glanced around at the rest of the lab.

"Sorry, it's not usually this much of a mess," he said. That _wasn't_ true. At all. Winn didn't have an office, but he'd successfully taken over this lab as his private space, and had quickly spread himself out. Bits and pieces of stuff he was in the middle of were scattered everywhere.

He made a move to clear away some of the more Guardian-related projects littering the lab, but he stopped himself as he saw what Lena was doing. She had walked toward the portal, seemingly mesmerised by it. And then Winn realised why.

Lena had 'built' her transmatter portal, but it wasn't exactly something she'd hammered together in her garage; it had been built for her, by employees and contractors, and assembled out on an L-Corp testing range. To Winn's knowledge, even now it had been dismantled, she'd never been within a mile of it.

But right now, there was one right in front of her. Right now, she was Charles Babbage, examining the inner workings of an iPhone; taking it all in, peering at the components that even Winn didn't know what they did. She was reaching out to it to touch it, but never actually made contact, like it would turn to dust if she tried.

"There's no power going to it, it's safe," Winn said, his voice surprising her enough to make her flinch. Lena nodded at him to acknowledge what he'd said, and then reached out again...

...and touched it, and when she did, she somehow seemed more at ease than she'd ever been; which surprised Winn, because he hadn't even realised she'd been tense. Then he remembered the Venture, the space plane that Kara and Superman had rescued. How could he not? It was the gig that got him the DEO job.

Lena had meant to be on that first flight, and an attempt on her life was the reason that it went down. Hers had been one of the first names to go on the passenger list. But she'd given it up, because she'd had to work, whatever that meant.

Winn would have killed to have been on that flight, and couldn't imagine any scenario - not even the actual sabotage - in which he would have backed out.

He wondered: how much had it hurt her to let that go?

Lena shook, like she'd suddenly remembered where she was, and tensed up again. The effect would be imperceptible if you weren't looking for it; but now that Winn knew about it, it was there. She took her hand off of the portal, and asked, "How does it work? It's not like mine. The design is all different."

"You're gonna hate this answer, but: we don't know. We DO know that there's psychic energy involved, so there's definitely organic, or maybe even inorganic living components in there-" Winn said.

Lena laughed, "Psychic energy? Are you kidding?"

He was not. "I'm told that it... hums, sometimes, if you're a telepath. We think the psychic energy's what generates the anion emissions, but we can't be sure without dismantling it entirely," he said, tidying away some of his personal debris.

Lena stood back from the portal, but didn't take her eyes off of it. "So... telepathy is real?"

Winn stopped. He clearly hadn't learned anything from this afternoon. "You understand everything I'm talking about is covered by your NDA, right?"

"Of course," Lena said, "What about computing power?"

"Doesn't need much at all. You can run everything off a tablet," Winn replied.

"Portal-to-portal, sure; but what about point-to-point, like you were talking about? All those calculations... you must have some serious astrometric equipment here," she said.

"I wish. There was no time. I had to use a pad and a pen," he said. Of all the frightening things Winn had to do while at the DEO, stepping through that portal into what he had been sure would end up being the vacuum of space had possibly been the worst. But he certainly wasn't going to make anyone else walk through it.

"You did it on _paper?_ " she guffawed, before finally breaking away from the device, and gradually making her way around the rest of the lab. Winn didn't really know what to do but shrug.

"Does Kara know?" she asked.

"Kara would likely not have understood any of what I just said even if I'd told her," Winn said, truthfully, getting a duffel bag from underneath a nearby workbench.

"I meant about the DEO," she said.

"Immediate family are permitted to know, under the same NDA you have, and she knows I work with her sister; so, yes, Kara knows," Winn said, after a moment's pause, "besides, when she's got a story that needs expert data analysis for, like, say, one of her friends is falsely imprisoned on the basis of impeccably forged video evidence, you know who she comes to."

Winn opened up the bag, and removed its contents: his tactical gear. He'd come to the office dressed for his cover story; t-shirt, jeans, hoodie, exactly what he would wear if he came in because he couldn't sleep. He'd need to change, but... but there was nowhere else he could go now, he realised. He'd have to do it in this room. With Lena there.

He really, _really_ wished he'd planned this better.

He carried on, "Sorry that took so long, by the way - you know that thing, where you know you know the answer, but you don't _know_ the answer?" He turned around, and did a double-take when he saw her expression. Was she... upset by this?

Her shock melted away as her attention focused on the question. "No," she said; confused, but definitely serious, "You either know the answer, or you don't." 

Winn was not at all surprised by this revelation. "It's a thing that happens with... some people, and I had it for three hours, and it was... anyway, I'm sorry. Did you know it was even possible to hack the _chip_ in a digital camera? The one that converts the visual information to code? I didn't," he said, pulling his boots out of the bag.

"I didn't know that," Lena said.

"That's what I'm saying, it isn't common knowledge-" Winn replied, not certain of the polite way to ask someone to _not_ watch you be half-nude.

"No, I mean..." Lena interrupted. "Kara never said she had help, with proving my innocence. I mean, I knew about Supergirl, but... Thank you." she said, finally.

"It's what they pay me for," Winn said, quietly, remaining focused on the task at hand. Kara _and_ Supergirl. Way to share the credit, there, Danvers.

It was a selfish thought, and he knew it, so he pushed it out of his head. "Could you take a look over there for me please?" he asked, pointing at the other side of the lab.

Lena's gaze followed his pointing finger, then walked over to the bench. "What am I looking for?" she asked, glancing over everything.

"Nothing. I just need to change my clothes, and I don't think that's something you want to see, so I need you to..." he pointed in the opposite direction.

"Ok," she said, eyebrow raised, a slight smirk on her lips. He waited, impatiently, then she rolled her eyes, turned to face the acoustic shielding on the opposite wall, and gave the nearest workbench a more thorough inspection. Winn watched to make sure she wasn't going to turn back around, then whipped his shirt off.

"You got some of the flowers, at least?" Lena asked, loudly.

"There were flowers?" Winn asked back, at the same volume, pulling the black shirt over his head.

"I got Kara a lot of flowers as a thank you," she said, pulling some books out of a pile on the bench. "She probably thought you were too manly for them," she added, after she heard Winn's profoundly negative silence.

"Sure," he said, kicking his Vans off, knowing full well that that ship had sailed long ago. Now, _pants_...

"You gearing up for a rematch?" Lena asked.

"What?" Winn replied, pants around his ankles.

"These," she said, and held up Winn's copies of 'Chess For Dummies' and 'Mastering Chess Strategy'. She turned slightly, and-

"EYES FRONT!" Winn yelled, and Lena snapped back to facing the wall. He frantically grabbed the black pants, and pulled them on.

"It's okay, you can turn around now," he said, once he was zipped up. He made his way over to her, saying, "I apologise. The yelling was... uncalled for."

"It's fine," she said, thumbing through one of the books, "Are these any good?"

"I guess we'll have to find out. Perhaps, next time, I might last two, maybe even three whole minutes," he said, pulling his boots on in the nearest chair.

"Will that be before or after you introduce me to Jim Steinway?" she asked, dropping the book back down on the bench, and leaning against it.

"Stein _man_ ," he corrected, and the way her smirk grew told him she'd gotten it wrong deliberately, and that he, as always, had fallen for it. "You seem like someone who needs more power ballads in her life, is all."

"I could just look him up on iTunes; it is fairly simple to use," she said, facetiously.

Winn laced up his boots. "I respect that, Ms. Luthor, but if you're telling me iTunes is easy to use, all you're really telling me you haven't used iTunes in a while. Besides, it's better if I do you a tape; a lot of these songs are upwards of eight minutes. It's not for beginners." 

He stood up, almost authoritatively, and said, "Okay, now for your vest."

"My what?"

Winn had procured a bulletproof vest for her earlier in the day, not long after they'd planned this expedition. "I thought we were only going for five minutes, absolutely no longer?" Lena asked, when he presented it to her.

"It's called SLAVER'S MOON. There's only two kinds of people you meet there: the first kind aren't friendly, and the other kind can't help us. Three hundred seconds is enough time to get shot in. Put it on," Winn said, and pulled a weapons case from next to his duffel bag was. He didn't like the idea of taking a gun, but if he was going to do this, he was going to make sure it was done right; or, at least, as close as he could get.

"Then why are we going there?" she asked.

"Because I know where it is, and that we can breathe once we're there. Try anywhere else, the risk goes up."

As he carefully loaded the gun, making sure it was safe at every stage, Lena said, "Should I have a gun too?"

Winn considered the other weapon in the case. "No. I mean, yeah. You were like a, uh, Olympic musketeer, weren't you?"

Lena zipped up her vest. "It's called Modern Pentathlon," she said, sternly.

"It involves shooting, doesn't it?" he said, sliding the loaded gun into his holster.

"It does," she deadpanned.

"Fencing?" 

"Yes," she said, not any cheerier.

"Horseback riding?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Then calm down, Dogtanian, there's no need to get defensive. Musketeers are cool." Winn said, with a hint of glee.

There was a pause, and then, "You said Dogtanian," she replied, not at all impressed.

Winn thought for a second. "My knowledge of this story may be mostly based on cartoon animals," he said, deflated.

Lena took this on board, then snatched the clip for the other weapon from the case, grabbed the bullets, and snapped them together as though she did so for a living.

"Probably won't need it anyway. I'm sure DEO weapons training is extensive," she said, "Is there a spare holster?"

There was. And Lena was right, DEO weapons and combat training was incredibly extensive. Agents required upwards of eighteen hundred hours before attaining field rating. It did not seem like the best time to tell her that he had, to date, only completed ten minutes of it; after which, Alex had stormed out of the firing range, and had made it very clear to everyone that if training was to continue, it would have to be done by _someone else_.

There had, unsurprisingly, been no volunteers.

He didn't even know what the pockets in his vest were supposed to be for. He kept beef jerky in his.

Lena holstered her now loaded pistol, and said, "You know, it's the only event where the horse gets a medal."

"Yeah? What medal did your horse get?" he said, and then winced, internally. He did, in fact, already know this story from her file.

And it was clear that she knew he knew, given how coldly she finally replied, "It didn't. Threw me at the first jump, broke my collar bone. Put me out of the competition."

"Do horses not like you, or...?" Winn asked, tentatively.

"It didn't know me," Lena replied. "Are we ready to go?"

"Almost," Winn said, "Just one more thing..."

 

Once everything was ready, Winn set the timer on his watch for thirty-five minutes, and stepped back to the lab door. Once he unlocked it, he'd have to work as quickly as possible. Don't want to be interrupted. Then five minutes later, back, and-

He had no idea how he was going to get Lena out of the building again.

Well, screw it. Winn unlocked the door, and strode back to the portal. No time to waste.

"OK. We're doing this," he said, grabbing his tablet from the bench, and tapping furiously. "Would you like to do the honours, Ms. Luthor?" he asked, turning the tablet to face her.

"Which button is it?" Lena asked, earnestly.

Winn peered over the top of the tablet, at the screen, which showed a very large red button, with a distinct 'press me!' appearance. He looked back up at Lena, exasperated. There was The Smile again. 

"You're learning," she said, and pressed the button.

The portal hummed, with a deceptive quietness, and then the circle ignited with a brilliant, shimmering field of energy. Winn took up position in front of it, and beckoned Lena to do the same.

"It's... lilac," she said, marveling at it.

"Are you ready?" Winn asked.

"I don't know," she said, and Winn was sure this was the only time he'd ever heard uncertainty in her voice. "I feel like we ought to have code-names."

"You've already got one, 'Edmund'," he said.

"'Edmund?' 'EDMUND'?! Why am I 'Edmund'?" she asked, furiously, "Why can't I be 'Susan'?" 

"Don't look at me, I'm not the one that befriended a wicked queen!" he said, adding as he saw her disdain, "And you also get a nice redemption arc, so it's all good."

Lena sighed. "Whatever you say, 'Peter'."

"I'm actually 'Lucy'," Winn smirked.

"You had a lot of fun with this, didn't you?" she asked.

" _Senators_ read my reports on this. It's _hilarious_ ," he replied.

"Right," she said, turning her attention back toward the portal, "Okay, then. Let's go see Mister Tumnus."

And then Winn watched, helplessly, as Lena charged through the portal.

"Dammit," he said under his breath, and then ran in right after her, just before it closed behind him.


	4. The Lady Lena, Of The Great And Honourable House Of 'L'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that 2x13 technically contradicts this, but I've always liked the idea that that Winn is the only character that hasn't come to National City from somewhere else.
> 
> Plus, checking the Arrowverse wiki for the spelling of Maaldoria, I found that my location for it is completely wrong. If you're a stickler for such things, I'm sorry.

Winn emerged on the other side of the portal; and fell, face-first, onto the cold, damp, powdery soil of Maaldoria. Wait, no, this wasn't soil, this was... was this _snow?_

He lifted his head, and saw the semi-familiar landscape that surrounding the off-world portal: the sweeping hill to the left, the rock formations to the right; but this time, blanketed in white, like an image on a Christmas card. The snow wasn't falling though; the skies had cleared, and the stars - and the nearby planet around which Slaver's Moon was in orbit - shone clearly against the night, illuminating everything around him by reflecting off the snow. The air was cool, and while it wasn't as cold as Winn would have expected, he could still see his breath turn to vapour. And, ahead of him, six or seven light, clear bootprints; at the end of which stood Lena Luthor, her black clothing contrasted against the landscape, staring up into the sky; in what could, conceivably, be called awe. 

God, he wished he could Instagram this.

"The joke makes more sense now," Lena said, absentmindedly, as Winn messily climbed to his feet. "Do you think we'll find a lamp-post?"

"This wasn't here before," he replied, reaching down again to scoop the white powder into his hand, letting the looser flakes fall between his fingers before crushing the rest together in his fist. It was SO COLD.

"Not always winter, then," she said, turning back to him just as he dropped his newly-made tiny snowball to the ground. He stuck his hand under his armpit to warm it back up, and he heard her ask, "What are you doing, Lucy? We're on another planet, we've got four minutes and twenty seconds left, and you're staring at the ground!"

"Sorry," he shouted back, grabbing his tablet from the bag he'd brought with him.

"It's just... I've never seen snow before."

Winn had lived in National City his whole life, and - apart from the weird rainy season that tended to come about around April and May - the skies had always been sunny and clear. There hadn't been a snowman built within the city limits in nearly forty years. Winn remembered his mother complaining about it every December.

"You lived in Massachusetts for four years, and it never snowed?" Lena asked, incredulously.

"I never lived in Massachusetts," Winn replied. He'd wanted to, though, hadn't he? 

He quickly tapped away with his cold hands, frantically looking for something to change the subject. This, he realised, was why they'd only really talked about work these past six weeks. There were too many things he just couldn't talk about right now. Couldn't even think about...

"Oh. Okay. I would have assumed you went to MIT-" she said, before Winn cut her off.

"Hang on!" he said, turning his back to her, still typing. Please drop the subject, please drop the subject, please drop the subject...

Winn had nearly found what he was looking for on the tablet, when something struck him on his back; turning to powder as it made impact. He turned back around, to see Lena standing there, arms crossed, defiant.

"Did you just throw a snowball at me?" he asked.

She shook her head, nonchalantly. "Fascinating theory," she said, "Unprovable, but worth exploring."

Winn turned back to the tablet, hitting a few more keys before finding the appropriate star chart. "Okay-" he said, finally looking up just as he was struck by another snowball.

Lena stood there; clearly responsible, but otherwise guilt-free. "I'm exploring your theory," she said, dryly.

Winn shook the snow off of himself, and walked right up to her, fighting against the snow with every step. "Well, Ms. Luthor, _we_ are currently somewhere in or near the Perseus constellation, and over _there_ -" he said, pointing into the night sky, Lena's gaze following his arm, "is the star Sol, roughly five thousand, six hundred light years away."

He lowered his voice, and as he spoke, Lena pulled herself in closer to hear him. "The light we're looking at right now shone down upon a little, blue, comparatively primitive planet, nearly six thousand years ago. The people living there... they haven't even invented the wheel yet."

He paused; half for dramatic effect, and half because he thought he might cry if he didn't take a breath, before adding, "Look at how far we've come."

Lena started to shake. Winn was a little confused - he thought he might cry, but he didn't think his particular brand of over-sentimentality would set her off - before he finally got a clear look at her face in the... well, he supposed it was kind of like 'moonlight', and he saw that she was trying to stifle a giggle.

"Too much, huh?" he said.

"Yes. You were right," she said, still trying to control her laughter, "I have... _no_ idea what to do with this information." She allowed herself a controlled smile.

Winn thought about it. "Positive reinforcement, maybe? Can't do any harm," and he cupped his hands, tablet and all, around his mouth. "YOU'RE DOING GREAT, GUYS! WE LOVE YOU!"

Lena started laughing again as he lowered his arms, before quickly raising them again. "MAYBE LEARN TO WASH YOUR ASSES, YOU'LL AVOID THE DYSENTERY!", then he nudged Lena's giggling form, saying, "Go on. Give them some love."

And at that, she composed herself, looked him square in the eye for a moment; then turned back to 'Earth', and blew a kiss their way.

And then she turned back to him, employing an expression that Winn recognised from Lillian, of all people, that said, _Was that what you had in mind?_

"Nice," Winn said, "and, if you consider that to be electromagnetic energy, one day, some guy or gal in the seventy-seventh century is gonna get that, and it's gonna brighten up their whole day-"

"What was that?" Lena asked suddenly, ignoring him, looking into the distance.

"What was what?" Winn asked, following her eyes.

"I saw... scurrying," she said, nudging him, "Go check it out."

"I dunno, it might be portal time..." he whispered.

"We've got two more minutes, Agent Schott," she hissed back.

Winn sighed, then drew his weapon. He inched forward, deciding the whole time whether or not to take the safety catch off. He was very glad that he decided not to, as when he got about five yards ahead, another snowball hit him right in the back, making him jump ten feet in the air.

"REALLY?" he screamed back at her.

"Yes, really!" Lena yelled back.

"Did you even see anything before?" he asked.

"I did! I really did. But, Winn? You've never seen snow before, and you're on an alien planet. Don't you want to get in one snowball fight?" Lena answered calmly, gathering up another snowball. Winn didn't know how she wasn't feeling the cold. Were her hands made of kevlar or something?

"Against you? You know, I don't think I'd do well. I'm not a natural thrower... and I'm not, you know, wild about things being thrown at me," he said.

"It's just a snowball, Winn. You can't live in fear," she said.

"Says the woman standing behind me. Besides, it's not fear. It's more... a crushing inevitability."

"I'm not standing behind you, Winn. You're the scouting party," she said, adding, reassuringly, "You just need to do one. Come on. Look how far you've come."

Winn tried to send her a withering look for using his own words against him, which failed miserably; then re-holstered his weapon, and started collecting up snow, until he had himself a five-inch round ball in his hands.

Lena smirked back at him in the moonlight, poised. Winn took a deep breath, and threw. The ball flew through the air, straighter than he thought it was going to, but still a good two feet wide of her; particularly since she'd already dodged it and hurled her own ball right back at him as it sailed past. Her ball hit him square in the face, a nanosecond after he'd first seen it.

"Okay. Time's up," Winn said, after he'd wiped the snow off; his face cold, and still stinging from the impact.

"No one likes a sore loser, Winn," she said, with a hint of smugness, as he stomped back toward her. He stopped, briefly wondering where she'd learned the phrase, as it certainly wasn't from her brother or her mother.

"You're right, Ms. Luthor," he said, "Your victory was indeed honourable."

"Well, I couldn't just _let_ you-"

Winn suddenly heard the sound of... proton packs? charging up in the near distance. His non-existent combat conditioning, unsurprisingly, ignored it. His long established FPS experience, on the other hand...

"Oh, CRAP!" Winn grabbed Lena's hand to run; but she was already in motion, and he was half-dragged off his feet, before picking up speed and running with her.

As they reached the portal, Winn could make out voices, understanding maybe one of every four words in one of the many alien languages he could read, but had never heard spoken aloud. Was it... Mygorg? Tsauron? It didn't matter. They were NOT friendly. He tapped frantically at the tablet to activate the portal, as Lena drew her pistol, pulled back on the hammer, and clicked off the safety catch.

"If you wouldn't mind, Winslow..." she said, as calm as can be.

"Of course, Ms. Luthor," Winn replied, desperately trying to emulate her mood, but also finding out just how fast his fingers could type.

And then... the tablet froze. They would never make it now.

The voices had gotten louder now, and suddenly a huge bolt of blue energy flew between them, quickly followed by another. Winn looked up, and saw four or five blue lights running toward them; and realised, all too late, that their bullet-proof vests would provide no protection for them. Out of the corner of his eye, Lena had raised her pistol, and was taking aim. Winn was sure she could take one, perhaps two. But all five? 

"WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER!" Winn yelled at the oncoming team of guards, and stepped in front of Lena's pistol, arms raised.

"Winn, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" she snapped, lowering her pistol - but only a little - as another blue shot flew past them.

 _"Not getting us killed!"_ Winn hissed back, before turning back toward the guards, "WE SURR- Oh, hell..." and then repeated his message in Thanagarian, the only alien language he could actually speak that he thought there was a chance they would understand.

Winn got down on his knees, arms still raised; and one of the alien guards responded, in Thanagarian this time, " **SUBMIT YOUR WEAPON! SUBMIT!** "

Winn shook with fear as he translated, "You need to drop your gun. NOW." 

He heard Lena curse behind him, and then crunches in the snow as she followed his instruction threw her pistol ahead of him, and got down on her knees. He lowered his arm to pull his own pistol out of the holster with two fingers, and threw it towards where Lena had thrown hers.

" **DESIGNATION!** " yelled the lead guard, still in Thanagarian - Winn didn't recognise this species, although, he supposed, it didn't matter - as they finally reached the point where Winn and Lena were kneeling. The other guards were talking among themselves, in their own language. Winn picked out the few words he could.

Price. Trade. _Execute._

Winn thought quickly, and gave the first answer he thought of that could save their asses.

The lead guard - or, at least, the guard that Winn had thought of as the lead, although now they had settled into the same body language with the guard they were talking to as Alex would when talking to J'onn - exchanged a few words with their nearest companion, then said, " **Trade Price?** "

" **High** ," Winn replied.

The guards talked some more, then 'Alex' yelled, " **Rise!** ", then one of the others dragged Winn to his feet, with another moving behind him, presumably doing the same to Lena. 

"What are you telling them?" she asked, angrily.

"What I need to," Winn replied.

" **Absence of sound!** " the guard said, " **Instruction: appendages aft!** "

"Arms behind you back," Winn said in hushed tones, and performed the action accordingly.

The guard turned, and spoke to someone behind Winn, " **BEAST! SNARE!** "

Winn felt a sticky substance cover his hands. " **SNARE!** " the guard commanded again. Winn heard Lena retch in disgust.

Then, Winn noticed the sound of a number of tiny crunches in the snow slowly get closer. "Winn," Lena whispered, "That's what I saw."

Winn looked down, and saw a small creature, roughly the length and height of a small dog, but much broader.

It was a spider.

 

Winn was shivering by the time they'd been marched - in silence - to the nearest compound, at the top of the hill. Lena, four feet ahead of him, had been given a blanket, although Winn had no idea where the guards had produced it from. There were at least another ten more guards here - and at least another two languages - but they didn't appear to be very busy. There were also more of the spiders, most the same size as the one in the snow, a couple slightly larger; they were pulling small carts around, or otherwise making themselves useful. Some of the guards had long, thin prods, which they were using to shock the spiders into obedience.

Most of the guards from their march had peeled away, until only two were still with them; 'Alex' - the lead guard - and one of the others, who had acquired a shock prod. The absence of guards was probably why Lena felt comfortable whispering to him.

"What?" Winn had to ask.

"What did you tell them?" Lena repeated.

"That you are the Lady Lena, of the Great and Honourable House Of Luthor, and I am your loyal manservant," Winn told her. At least, he thought he'd said 'manservant'. It might have been 'male concubine', it was hard to tell. "Basically, you're a rich Earth aristocrat, and your family will pay good money for you."

"'Great and Honourable House of Luthor'? Guess they don't know my mother very well..." she said, sarcastically.

"They don't need to know that," Winn said.

"So, who are they going to sell us to?" Lena asked.

"A broker, probably. Someone who has contacts on Earth. Not really sure." he replied.

"Well, what are they saying?" The frustration in her voice was growing.

"I don't know." Winn kept checking around. There were other doors, other corridors. But slaver guard-posts had less of a stringent policy on labelling their work areas than the DEO did. 

"You don't know? You're the one who speaks their language," Lena continued asking.

"So far, I've heard them use three different languages with each other; all of which I only know how to read, not speak," he replied.

"Then what language are you speaking?"

"Thanagarian. It's like a galactic common tongue. It's what they use with the spiders."

"Oh."

" **Absence of sound!** " 'Alex' said, and the other guard shocked Winn. It wasn't overwhelming painful, but MAN, did it sting.

Fighting to remain upright, Winn yelled back " **Translation? or No Translation?** " Once they found a broker that spoke English, or whatever other languages Lena spoke, then he was expendable. It was best to keep himself useful. They weren't likely to shock Lena, though.

" **Translation,** " 'Alex' said, 

"I'm okay," Winn said, once he recovered, trying to keep Lena reassured; but he couldn't tell if it was working.

At that point, one of the larger spiders skittered over Lena's feet as she walked, and she gave a small, but involuntary shriek.

"Are you... scared... of spiders?" Winn asked, tentatively.

"No," she said, with artificial calm, "we just have a perfectly amicable agreement where they _stay away from me_."

Winn let that sit there for a moment, then, "Okay."

Lena carried on, "They have the wrong number of legs, okay? Insects, fine; millipedes, fine; spiders..."

" **DOOR!** " 'Alex' bellowed, as they came to a stop at a closed door. One of the spiders climbed the nearby wall, and tapped in the code for the door.

"Would it help if I told you they had twelve legs?" Winn said, having quickly counted.

As the door opened, another spider crawled through the corridor they were about to enter. But this one was bigger.

A LOT bigger. 

Four feet tall, six feet long, and at least as wide; this spider was equipped with a shock collar and a muzzle, and was hauling a full trailer of supplies.

Lena was silent until it passed. 

"Not really."

 

When they reached the cells, the other guard cut open Lena's restraints, while 'Alex' sat in the corner with the spider that had ensnared them.

" **Sustenance!** " The spider crawled over to 'Alex's' hands, where treats awaited. The spider grabbed them from the lead guard's hand, and its mandibles churned greedily.

Lena was pushed into an open cell, and the two guards argued amongst themselves. Winn didn't like the words he understood. 'Last meal' is not something you want to hear before you get put in a cell. But, oddly, neither one of them mentioned food, as far as he could tell.

The guard cut Winn's restraints, pushed him into the cell with Lena, then closed the heavy barred gate behind them. 

The guard made sure it was locked, then said something odd and laughed: "Have fun."

The guard had another conversation with 'Alex', something actually about food this time; and then yelled something else towards the cell. Something about being 'lucky.'

It was only then Winn realised what had happened.

He had _definitely_ said 'male concubine.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I've got life stuff to handle this next week (I've got life stuff I should be handling right now, to be honest), so the next update will be a little while from now. See you soon!


	5. Maaldorian Prison Blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I attempt to course-correct the single most OOC thing done by any character at any time in Season 2, Winn's attitude to Lena in 2x08.

As the two guards disappeared from earshot, Winn became much more acutely aware of how cold he was, and hugged his chest for dear life; sliding down the wall, until he was sat, curled up, on the floor.

Lena's blanket came flying toward him at speed; and once he'd recovered from the unexpected impact, wrapped it around himself as tightly as he could. This was a disaster. He'd been so stupid. He'd thought it would be okay, five minutes on an alien world, taking precautions... how wrong could it really go?

Very wrong, it had turned out.

And so he'd been kidnapped, and electrocuted; he was muddy from his fall through the portal; his hands and his face were freezing cold from the snow; he had web from what he now understood to be Thanagarian Snare-Beast - the same creature now sat in the guard's station, snaffling down some kind of meal - covering his wrists; and worse, droppings covering his boots. He was a mess.

Lena stood, bolt upright, arms folded. Despite everything, she still looked like she'd stepped straight off of a DEO recruitment poster. If they had existed.

"So, what's the plan?" she asked. At that exact moment, Winn's thirty-five minute warning alarm went off, and he moved quickly, in a single motion, to silence it, before pulling the blanket more tightly around him.

"We wait," he said, closing his mouth before his teeth could start to chatter. 

"So there's no plan," Lena said; not angry, but certainly nowhere in the realm of happy.

"No, there's a plan," Winn said, trying to believe it himself, even though he was the one that created it, "It involves waiting."

"Winn, the DEO doesn't know where we are, they don't know how to find us, and we're about to get sold to whatever slave trader they can get hold of that happens to speak English," she said, pacing to keep warm, as much as she could, "We need to leave before that happens. Or before one of us needs the bathroom."

Winn looked around the cell. There was the door, and a cot, and barely room for anything else; nothing resembling a bucket, and certainly nothing resembling privacy - save the blanket, and he was not going to be giving that up right now. Still, it was hard not to share her sense of urgency.

"Well, Ms. Luthor, what would you suggest-"

"The armoury." Lena's tone was cold and calm. This was her I-Have-A-Plan voice. Winn didn't know whether to be elated or terrified. 

"The armoury?" he asked, tentatively.

"When we were walking through the hall with the... spider, I saw a room: big, heavy doors; lots of guns inside. I think it's the armoury."

She took a single stride over to the gate, looking outward; taking a small step back when she saw the Snare-beast at the desk.

"We get out of this cell, we make our way there. Then we bar the door, and stay there for as long as we can, while we load up on guns. The guards come to us, we shoot our way out of the bottleneck; then we run, out of the compound, down the hill, and toward the portal. It's very risky; but between my training, and yours, we should be able to make it."

Winn had to admit: it sounded pretty good. Incredibly dangerous, but workable.

"Okay," he said, deliberately, "There's just one small problem."

"We can't get out of this cell," she said, not a hint of doubt in her voice.

"Well, no, getting out of the cell will be very inconvenient, but that's not the problem," he said.

"Then what?" she asked.

Winn pondered how bluntly to put it. "I may have... _obfuscated_ on the subject of how extensive my training has actually been."

Lena raised an unsurprised eyebrow.

"I don't want this to come as a shock to you, Agent Schott, but your throwing arm kind of gave that away. You've done a minimum amount of marksmanship, though, right?" 

Winn sat there, not knowing how not to look guilty.

"You _have_ , right?" she asked, half-knowing she had already answered her own question.

Winn took a breath, then fumbled his way into it: "Well, I think, in between when I loaded the bullets in, and when I took my gun out of the holster, you've actually had a full demonstration of all my firearms training-"

Lena dropped herself onto the cot, bracing herself against the blanket that was passing itself off as a mattress.

"Okaaaay," she said, calming herself, "I guess we're waiting, then."

Winn didn't know what to say, and shifted uneasily underneath the blanket. 

"Sorry. I'm not much more than a glorified IT help-desk, really," he said. When Lena didn't respond, he added, "I used to get really good scores on Duck Hunt, if that helps."

Lena still wasn't looking at him, but broke the silence, quietly saying, "Well, if they an old CRT laying around, then perhaps you could play for our freedom."

They sat in silence, and waited. The light, grinding sound of the Snare-beast's mandibles filled the void.

"So, why Bond?"

Lena looked at Winn like he'd sprouted a second head. "What?" she asked.

"Why d'you like James Bond so much?" Winn repeated.

"You're really asking me this?" she asked, incredulous.

"We've got time," he responded.

"It's a fairly well known film franchise, Winn, I didn't know I needed a reason," Lena said, astonished she was even having the conversation.

"I'm not trying to, you know, gate-keep you or anything, it's just that... he's very... I don't know how to phrase this-" Winn said, reaching for the idea that was right at the front of his mind.

"He's a chauvinist pig?"

"Yes; And, I don't know... that seems like something you'd have an opinion on. So... what is it?" Winn asked, laughing at his own impending joke before adding, "Are you just crying out for supervillain representation?"

Lena didn't roll her eyes, but may as well have; "Don't joke about that," she said.

"Hey, I'm allowed, remember?" he replied, in a defensive monotone, "I mean, I know my Dad's isn't pushing anywhere near Lex or Lillian's numbers, but, you know, he's got a theme, and I think that counts for a lot-"

"No, you idiot, it's just NOT FUNNY."

Winn couldn't tell if she'd raised her voice; but from the way she was staring at him, it felt like she had. 

"You have no idea what it's like. Everyone I meet, everyone I will EVER meet will have this preconception of who I am, because of who they know my family to be. And if I'm not like them, then I'm going to become them, because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, right? Or... I must have _known_ what they were? And if I did, when did I know, and why didn't I warn anyone; and if I didn't warn anyone, doesn't that make me an accomplice?"

Winn didn't speak. He didn't dare. It felt like he was reading her browser history... or maybe like she was reading his.

"And the worst part? I actually _am_ like them. Of course I am. Not all the way, but it's enough. So I don't know how to fight it. Do I try to pretend I'm someone else? Is that it? Do I need to... start wearing cardigans? Or smile all the time, and make dumb jokes, and make sure everyone else is happy? Or wear my hair in curls, or... fiddle with my glasses a lot, or any number of other things that make it all very clear to everyone how meek I'm supposed to be? Is that it? Because I don't know how to be that person; and if I did, I wouldn't be _me_ anymore, so... what do I do? How should I fight these people?"

Lena held her arms out, waiting on an answer.

"I wouldn't know," Winn said, terrified of how she would respond, "I was one of them."

"I know." Of course she did.

"I'm so sorry. I was wrong, and I'm glad I was wrong, but that doesn't make it any better, and..." Winn trailed off as he ran out of things he thought were worth saying, "and I'm sorry-"

"You're forgiven. It wasn't your fault, Winn," Lena said; unable to hide her disappointment, but somehow comfortable with its inevitablility.

"Of course it was my fault, Lena; I'm one of the few people that ought to know better," Winn said, steeling himself for what he was about to tell her, "I started high school eight months after my dad committed mass murder. Everyone knew exactly who I was and what he'd done before lunch on my first day, and it was the same at every school I went to after that. And everybody had all the same thoughts about me that they have about you. For _years_.

"So, no, I don't have a good excuse," Winn finished off, quietly.

"Then why?" Lena asked, "I'm not holding it against you, I'm just curious. Why did you think I'd be like that?"

Winn thought about it for a moment. He was surprised. He thought it would take him longer than that.

"Because if meant having a family that loved me, I would have done anything that they asked."

After all, he already did.

Winn continued, "I mean, if it was particularly stupid or dangerous, they might have had to ask twice, but I would have done it. I'd have never even made it to National City, if I'd been in your place. I'd be in a cell, right next to Lex. And I wouldn't even be sorry."

"I don't think that's entirely true," Lena said, calmer now.

"That's just 'cause you don't know me very well," he said, and somehow managed to smile. Just a little.

They held the silence between them, but it was different now. Soothing. And then, something unprecedented happened.

Lena looked... bewildered.

"Wait, how were you in high school?" she asked, grinning like she'd caught his hand in the cookie jar, "You told me the thing with your dad happened when you were eleven." 

Winn stifled a sad laugh, and said, "I'd skipped first and third grades."

If bewilderment was unprecedented for Lena, jaw-dropping astonishment was probably a once-in-a-lifetime event.

"You started high school when you were _twelve?_ " she said, half-forming words in her mouth before forming a coherent sentence; " _How_ have I never heard of you?"

Winn avoided answering the question that Lena wasn't asking; saying, "Where would you have heard of me?"

Lena spoke as though she were stating the obvious; "Conferences? Academia? Your name should at least be on a must-hire list somewhere... I dont understand, did your professors at Stanford not-"

"I didnt go to Stanford," Winn said, cutting her off.

"Well, where ever you went to school-" she replied, dismissively.

"Ipcress Bay Community College. National City."

Bewilderment, then astonishment, and now, shock. Winn could have revealed he was Supergirl right now, and Lena would have been less surprised.

"You can see the campus from your balcony," he carried on, giving Lena time to collect her thoughts.

When she finally spoke, she did so slowly; as though she were slotting the words into place right before they came out.

"You can identify... and _repair_... an experimental, miniaturized, black-body field generator _on sight_ ... and you went to a _community college_?" she asked, as though the universe might shatter if the answer was yes.

"Go Bluebottles," Winn replied, dryly. 

"You didn't want to go to a real college?" she asked.

Winn decided to let the 'real college' remark slide, and replied, "Do you know how much those schools cost?"

"But there are... scholarships-" she said. She didn't get it. How could she? Before Lex's downfall, there weren't many doors in the world that the Luthor name wouldn't open; and not really all that many now, either.

"There's a lot of deserving kids out there, Lena. Others more deserving than me. I was barely sixteen; my scores were fine, eight-hundred, six-seventy, but I wasn't a perfect student; no sports, no student council... I'm not good in interviews, I changed schools a few times..." Winn trailed off, feeling like he was making excuses, "Besides, scholarship funds and admissions offices can use Google just as well as you can." 

"You're telling me there wasn't a single university that would take you?" Lena said, having made it through the shock, and back into disbelief at this strange world Winn was describing to her.

"No, of course there were; but they weren't exactly great schools, and given the price, I thought I'd save on student loans," he said.

"You couldn't get any help at all?" she asked.

"Well, this was back when school shootings were terrifying and new, so my guidance counselors had other things on their minds besides my future when they talked to me. But, I can't really blame them, you know?" Winn said, adding when he saw her forlorn expression, "It's okay. It all turned out okay. I got a pretty good life now - fulfilling job, good friends... I got a cat - there's no need to pity me." 

Lena made an expression that made it clear the not-pitying-him ship had sailed; and said, "It's just- I would have said you deserved better."

Winn couldn't help but crack a grin.

"It's not about what you deserve. It never is. You're only entitled to what other people are willing to give you."

"But if you work hard, you apply yourself-" Lena reasoned.

"You're _still_ only entitled to what others are willing to give you. They might give you a little more, but... the universe doesn't owe you anything," he responded calmly.

"So you never once thought you were entitled to more? You never thought, 'I did the work, I earned this, I'm taking it'?" she asked.

"Once," Winn said. Apparently, _all_ the greatest hits of his life were getting airplay tonight. "There was a girl."

Lena's eyebrows jumped. "What did you do?" she asked accusingly. 

"Nothing I believe warrants that tone of voice," he replied, reassuringly, "We were friends, but... but I was in love with her. I was in love with her for so damn long, but I never believed that she would love me back. Not really. Until this one night, and she was saying all these things, and I was just so _tired_... so, I kissed her."

"And?" 

"She pulled away, I made a swift exit... and then immediately got kidnapped by my father, who then forced me to participate in my own personal worst nightmare from which I barely escaped with my life," Winn said, surprising even himself with how calm he was being; "The universe doesn't owe you anything; but sometimes, it does like to give you hints."

"This wasn't..." Lena began, making sure she got it right, "...Lyra, was it?"

"No." Okay, so maybe not all the hits. There was no way Winn was playing any tracks from _that_ particular album.

"It was Kara, wasn't it?" Lena carried on.

"It was," Winn said, a trace of guilt lingering on his voice.

"Did you apologise to her?" Lena asked, that accusatory tone back again.

"Profusely," Winn said.

"But you're not friends anymore?" she asked.

"What do you mean? I see her pretty much everyday," he replied.

"Even though you don't work together anymore?" Lena said, causing Winn to panic that he'd said too much, "She's never mentioned you."

"She doesn't really mention _you_ , unless there's a Luthor-related crisis," Winn said; preferring to acknowledge the reality than live in denial, "Look, you're right. Kara and I are close... but we're not as close as we were before. And as far as Kara not talking about you and me to each other goes... I think she likes to keep those parts of her life separate. I don't know if that's anyone's fault, Lena, but if is, it's certainly more my fault than it is either of yours.

"So, I'm sorry about that too," he concluded.

Winn looked out again at the guard's desk; as the Snare-beast, having finished its meal, scuttled around aimlessly.

"Lena?"

"Yes, Winn?

"I want you to know... I think it's really cool you know Duck Hunt doesn't work on new TVs," Winn said.

"Well... that's nice," said the young developer of multiple paradigm-shifting technologies.

"Good, because you're going to hate this," Winn said, and he flung the blanket off of himself, and shifted over to the gate.

"Why? What are you doing?" Lena asked.

Winn checked out the gate before answering.

"Something very inconvenient."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK. This chapter is the Big One in terms of character, and was the hardest one to write so far (although chapter seven might beat it, but for different reasons); and I still think I've rushed it in some places and have basically screwed the whole thing up.
> 
> Any critiques you may have, please feel free to comment; and please - if you're not honest with me, I can't improve.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	6. Meanwhile, at the DEO...

Some people in the world hated the night-shift. Alex Danvers was not one of them. She'd always been a night-owl, long before she joined the DEO; and although the... activities she'd involved herself in during those times were long behind her, the joy at being able to live her life while the rest of the world was asleep remained.

Now, instead of the bright lights and the earth-shakingly loud music, there was quiet. Peace. Serenity. She'd could get things _done_. Catch up on all her paperwork. Read all those articles she needed to read, but never had the time for. And... she could indulge.

Maggie was, stricly speaking, a vegetarian, but ate vegan whenever she could; which meant, involuntarily, that Alex was now a vegetarian that ate vegan whenever Maggie could. Worse, Maggie had gone on a health-food kick over the past few weeks, and 90% of all their meals now featured either quinoa or kale, most of them both. Maggie had said that she'd been eating too much bad food on the job, and that she needed to keep up with 'DEO conditioning', as she'd put it. Alex suspected that Maggie was freaking out about the wedding already, but wisely considered it... ungentlewomanly to say this out loud.

And so, as partners of vegetarians who hadn't signed on had done since time began, Alex took full advantage of the meals they didn't share.

Sometimes, she would go out. She'd take an hour, and stroll around as the clubs emptied out; watching the girls she used to be stumble and laugh and make out with guys - helping them out, when she thought they were in trouble - and she'd get herself something. Sometimes, it was the bacon-blue cheese burger from the diner down on Crescent, dripping with unholy, delicious pork and dairy fats; sometimes, it was the currywurst from the van parked on Seventh - a simple, cheap German sausage, covered in generic ketchup and curry powder, with a roll - that tasted exactly like it sounded; once, she'd gone to an Andoorian sushi bar, and while the flavour of raw tuna surrounded by... she'd guessed sauerkraut, but it was best not to ask - was an acquired taste, she'd be willing to try it again.

But, in the depths of her soul, she knew that her heart - and her tastebuds - truly belonged to the understated, unassuming, delightful nastiness of the DEO kitchen vending machines. And tonight, they had provided her with a magnificent bounty: a can of full-sugar Sprite; a bag of potato chips, refrigerated to the absolute perfect temperature, in a world where no-one would even think to refrigerate them at all; not one, but TWO sandwiches - one ham and cheese, the other a more tantalisingly ambiguous 'meat'; and - in a sign that she was truly favoured by the snack food gods - a single serving pack of Chocos, which the DEO bought by the crate, but were somehow rarer than gold dust.

It amused her that, at some point, someone was going to have to sit in down in front of a Senate Intelligence sub-commitee and explain that, no, the DEO's Choco budget was not a surreptitious line-item to hide funding for a secret death ray; but was, in fact, merely an unusually high expenditure on an otherwise inexpensive delicious chocolate treat.

It amused her even more that it wouldn't have to be her.

"Mine!" Alex barked clumsily, muffled from the bite of sandwich she was still chewing, and slammed her hand down over the Chocos on the desk without looking - before the larger hand, which now covered her own, could take them from her.

She turned her head, and there stood J'onn J'onzz - Last Son of Mars, Director of the DEO, and the main culprit behind the agency's problem with vast Choco inequality - waiting for her to be the first one to break. Realising that she wouldn't, his face turned to pure innocence, he held up his hands in surrender, and said, "I was just going to open them for you."

"Uh huh," she hummed, and sipped her Sprite - which was far emptier than she thought it was; and so produced a brief gargle and the sound of an empty vacuum, instead of the victorious slurp she'd been hoping for - before picking up her rightly-earned cookies and moving them to the opposite side of the desk from where J'onn stood.

"You're in early," she said, smugly, taking her feet off the desk.

"Couldn't sleep," J'onn said, a tinge of apprehension in his voice.

"It's goin' around," she said, "Anything I can help with?"

"Not sure," he said, "Has anything... unusual happened tonight?"

"Not that I'm aware of. It's been quiet," she replied.

"No psychic activity?"

"I wouldn't know," she reminded him, adding, "You sure it wasn't just a bad dream?"

J'onn pondered this, and finally said, sadly, "Perhaps."

Alex knew enough to know when to ask questions... and when not to.

"Well, Winn's here, so I can get him to look into it, if you want. I'm sure he'd welcome-"

"No, he's not," J'onn said, suddenly.

The statement set off a feeling in Alex like hearing a siren in the distance; there was an emergency somewhere, you just didn't know where it was yet. It was disconcerting enough to bring her to her feet.

"What d'you mean?" she asked.

"He isn't here, Agent Danvers," J'onn repeated, authoritatively.

"But I just saw him! It was like," she paused, checking her watch, "maybe forty-five minutes ago?"

"I believe you, Alex; but if Agent Schott were in the building, I would know it," J'onn said; before adding - in a tone of voice that suggested that there were Things Martian Was Not Meant To Know; but had, by psychic osmosis, become privy to them anyway - "He has a very distinctive thought pattern."

"Well, he wouldn't have just left in that time. Where would he go?" Alex asked, right before a brief fanfare sounded over the PA, and the main screen in Central Ops - and virtually every other screen in the room - switched to a title card that read 'IMPORTANT MESSAGE'.

Alex's eyes widened. The sirens in her head were getting closer...

The title card disappeared, and was replaced by a distressing close-up of an ear; before the person it belonged to became satisfied the camera was on, and sat back to reveal themselves to be Agent Winslow Schott, Jr, dressed in his tactical gear.

"Hi, Guys!" Video Winn said, nervously.

"Oh, no," Alex said, quietly, to no-one in particular.

"Yeah," Big-screen Winn said, as though answering her, "So, if you're watching this, it's because thirty-five minutes ago, me - and my glamourous assistant-" 

Alex - and the entire night staff of the DEO - watched as Winn slid his chair out of view to reveal _LENA FUCKING LUTHOR_ \- who was, from her body language, not at all expecting to be on camera - standing far behind him, also dressed in tactical gear; before sliding back into position to continue:

"We took an unauthorised trip to Maaldoria, and are now thirty minutes overdue; so, we've possibly been captured, or maybe even killed. Now Alex, I know what you're thinking, how could I be so stupid-"

\- it was, at best, the edited-for-TV-and-airlines version of what she was thinking -

"-and it's a fair question; but, to be honest, I don't think we have that kind of time. Now the portal's all set up to go, you just need to press the big red button on THIS tablet-" Winn held up a tablet; showing a gold eye with a neon-blue iris in the centre, and a teardrop forming at the bottom on its case, "-and it'll bring you here; so if you could just get passed the whole thing where you want to kill me, and come get us..." he trailed off, then forced himself into fake cheerfulness, "that'd be great. Hope to hear from you soon."

There was an awkward silence, and then, "Thanks."

Winn reached up to shut off the camera, and the screens all turned back to how they had been before.

Alex stood there, having stepped off the edge of the world. Winn - WINN - had broken a civilian - and not just any civilian, but a bona fide security risk - into the DEO, taken her to see a piece of top secret alien technology, and then onto an incredibly dangerous alien planet, right under everyone's nose. Right under _her_ nose.

He'd lied, right to her face, and she didn't even know it.

She'd have been proud of him, if it didn't make her trigger finger itch.

"Agent Danvers," J'onn began - in the same tone he would use three months from now against the junior Senator from Ohio at the suggestion that the DEO procure a cheaper, more generic cookie - "Please put a team together and get Agent Schott and Lena Luthor back from Slaver's Moon. Unharmed."

"Do I _have_ to?" she asked.

J'onn hesitated _just_ a little longer than he ought to have, then said, "We can't let a high-profile civilian like Lena Luthor die on an alien planet."

Alex sighed, then turned to the rest of the DEO, all of whom were now staring at the two of them, and said, "Come on, people, you heard the-" she pointed up at the main screen, loathing to use the word, "-'man', let's go get them back. Charlie, Dana, you're with me."

Alex matched away, and J'onn waited a moment, before slowly sidling over to the other side of the desk, where the pack of Chocos sat waiting for him...

"MINE!" Alex yelled as she ran back, snatching her Chocos from under him before rejoining her team, and heading back towards Winn's lab.


	7. The Maaldoria Redemption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I didn't really have an outline for this chapter when I started it; and quite frankly, I didn't expect it to get this long or this weird. Enjoy.

_The Thanagarian Snare-Beast was hungry. It was always hungry._

_The bipeds kept it fed, mostly, as long as it followed their commands. But not too much. If they fed it, it would grow bigger; but when - or if - it got to full size, it would be able to eat one of the bipeds whole._

_They wouldn't want that._

_So, they kept it mostly starved, and that worked out best for everyone. Well, everyone except the Snare-Beasts, of course, but the bipeds weren't too worried about that._

_" **Suuuustenaaance...** " the Snare-Beast heard from the barred gate. It turned, and a biped pedipalp was sticking out through the bars. And there was a new scent in the air._

_Biped food._

_" **Suuuuuuuustenaaaaaaance...** " the voice said again, and the Snare-Beast leaped back onto the floor, and made its way over to the gate._

_The Snare-Beast's many eyes could now see that the pedipalp was holding something. Meat. Well, sort of meat. It was dried out, and smelled weird; but it seemed edible, and it was just SO HUNGRY..._

 

Winn watched as the Snare-Beast literally ate out of his hand, while reaching into his vest pocket for a second piece of beef jerky.

"Are you absolutely sure we have to do this?" Lena asked; leaning against the opposite wall, in a failed attempt to look like she wasn't backing away in fear.

"If this is gonna work, we're gonna have to bond with it, so; yes, we do have to do this," he replied; holding the second piece of jerky just out of the Snare-Beast's reach, forcing it to move closer to the bars.

" **Consume,** " Winn whispered to the Snare-Beast, holding out yet another piece of jerky, this time _inside_ the bars, and the Snare-Beast squeezed through to get it.

Winn pulled another piece of jerky from his pocket, and the Snare-Beast rushed to take it from his hand. Winn flinched at first; but once he saw it wasn't attacking him, he picked the Snare-Beast up, rested on his lap, and started to pet it.

" **Praise, praise,** " Winn said in a friendly voice; stroking the Snare-Beast's coarsely-haired thorax, while continuing to feed it, " **Primary designation: Winn. Not source of pain.** "

With his now empty hand, he pointed over at Lena, who was trying to phase through the wall by sheer force of will, " **Tertiary designation: Lena. Kind companion of Winn. Also not source of pain.** " He gestured her to come over.

Lena responded very much in the negative.

"It's not going hurt you; now, stop cowering in the corner and pet the giant spider," he said, big smile on his face, in the same friendly voice he was using with the Snare-Beast, but with an additional tinge of urgency.

Lena narrowed her eyes at him, then tiptoed towards him, and sat down next to him. 

About two feet away from him, but it was better than nothing.

" **Primary-group attributes: not sources of pain. Kind companions of Snare-Beast,** " Winn said, and looked back over to Lena to mouth the words 'Pet it'.

She reached over all the way - hand shaking just a little and stroked the Snare-Beast. She looked like she might puke.

Winn reached back into his pocket, pulled out another piece of jerky, and held it out to her. She tried to glare at him again, saw it wasn't working; then took the jerky from him, and held it in front of the Snare-Beast's mandibles.

" **Su-sustenance?** " Lena said, in unsure and broken Thanagarian. As the Snare-Beast ate, she looked back at Winn for confirmation she had pronounced it correctly; then, after he nodded, continued, " **Kind companions. Sources of pain-** "

" **NOT SOURCES OF PAIN! NOT SOURCES OF PAIN!** " Winn rushed, as the Snare-Beast startled at Lena's mispronounced statement. Thanagarian was such a specific language.

" **NOT sources of pain,** " she corrected herself, emphasising the previously misspoken syllable as she went back to stroking the Snare-Beast. It calmed down again. She looked back up at Winn, and said, "Don't ever make me do this again."

Winn suppressed a laugh, then looked back down at the Snare-Beast and said, " **Kind companions require assistance. Provide assistance?** " Winn wasn't sure what kind of responded he was expecting, but the sound the Snare-Beast made seemed fairly positive. He released his grip on it, and said:

" **Polite instruction: Door.** "

The Snare-Beast jumped out of his arms - towards Lena, who did her best not to freak out - and then rounded back to the gate, where it squeezed back through the bars. Winn clambered back to the gate, to watch as it climbed the wall outside.

"Is it doing it?" Winn heard Lena say in the background, but he was listening for the light tapping on the wall, just outside of his field of vision.

A loud buzz filled the cell, and the gate swung open. Winn scrambled to his feet, and pushed his way out of the cell; Lena right behind him. He turned back to the wall where the Snare-Beast was.

"Good work, Eighteen-Twelve," he said, and then he dumped the remainder of the jerky on the floor. The Snare-Beast jumped over to the pile, and feasted.

"We need to move fast," Lena said, having already raided the guard's station for weapons, and come up with two of the shock prods that had been used on him earlier.

Winn took one the prods Lena handed to him, as they heard footsteps approaching - not quite in a hurry, as though their owner hadn't worked out if there was an emergency yet - and said, "But first, we should hide."

It wasn't much of a hiding place, just standing out of sight behind the door, but there weren't that many options. When the footsteps' owner finally walked in, Winn could see that it was the lead guard, the one he'd identified as the Alex of the group. 

They looked around the room, and saw that the cell Winn and Lena had just been in was open, and empty. And then they saw Winn and Lena standing there.

" **Apologies** " Winn said, and Lena promptly shocked the guard in the neck. They crumpled to the floor.

"That didn't happen to me," Winn observed. He felt bad for the guard. Seemed like they were just doing their job.

"I turned the power setting up; now get him out of sight," Lena ordered.

Winn did as he was told, yanking the guard out of the view of the hallway; before checking to make sure the coast was clear.

"We're good," Winn said, and the two of them quietly made their way down the hallway to where Lena had seen the armoury; with the tiny Snare-Beast following along behind them.

"You realise it's following us now?" Lena whispered.

"What do you want me to do about it?" Winn hissed back, looking around nervously.

" _Tell it to stop!_ " she replied, rounding the last corner.

Winn kneeled down by the Snare-Beast, and said " **Do not follow.** " The Snare-Beast wiggled its mandibles, and followed Lena anyway. Frustrated, he got back to his feet.

And by the time he stood up, there were two guards, not thirty feet away from him; both with prods, one of them yelling for reinforcements.

"Crap!" he yelled. The silent guard stepped toward him, deliberately, shock-prod ready and charged. Winn awkwardly raised his own in defence. There was a brief stand-off, each one of them not-quite lunging at the other; until Winn left an opening, and the guard extended himself to shock him...

...at which point, Lena brought her own shock-prod down on the guard's. The shock-prod being forced to the ground threw the guard off balance, a situation which was compounded by Lena's size seven boot hitting him in the side, sending him flying into the wall, and onto the floor. She moved to shock him, but the second guard rushed her; so quickly redirected her energies toward parrying the next shock-prod headed her way.

The second guard stood back, and Lena regrouped into _en garde_ stance; left arm behind her, shock prod held upright in her right hand. Winn stood just to her left, his own shock-prod raised.

"Go to the armoury, get better weapons," she hissed at him.

"I'm not gonna leave you-" he protested, only to be cut off.

"GO!" Lena yelled, and she pulled her left arm out from behind her to shove him down the hallway toward the armoury. The guard took advantage of her distraction to make his attack; but she wasn't all that distracted, parrying the shock-prod away, and making a perfect thrust at his chest, hitting the shock button right at the point of contact. But now the first guard was back on his feet...

Winn heard the guard scream as he ran down the hallway toward the armoury, and his heart fell as he saw the door was sealed with a keypad, like the others. He looked around for the Snare-Beast, but it was still with Lena; climbing the wall to her right, as she exercised some old skills on the two guards.

He looked back at the keypad. There were twelve buttons - each door he'd seen had required a four digit combination, so that could be one of more than twenty-thousand combinations - but they had been numbered with poor-quality paint, and the code clearly hadn't been changed for a long time; so, while eight of the buttons were pristine, the other four had been worn blank by years of fingers and legs. There didn't seem much point in worrying about alarms going off anymore, so Winn hit the most worn of the four - the most likely to be first - and then ran through the remaining six combinations in quick succession. It took two tries before the door opened.

He rushed in, and grabbed the nearest thing he could - a pistol, just like Alex's - and ran back to Lena, who now had three unconscious guards at her feet, and was fighting a fourth; but the shock-prod looked heavy in her hand, and she was struggling to keep it aloft. Winn considered firing, but they were too close together; he was more likely to hit Lena than the guard. 

The guard pushed Lena back, but she took the shock-prod in both hands and lunged at him, disappearing around the corner. The guard screamed at the shock-prod hit him, but Winn also heard that familiar power-up sound again, and Lena was frozen in place as he rounded the corner, pistol raised...

...and just as the fifth guard was about to fire - not a weapon like Alex's, but something more lethal that Winn had seen before in the DEO's alien weapon archives - the Snare-Beast webbed the guard in the face.

"THANK YOU!" Winn and Lena said in unison, as they realised what had happened.

It got him right in the eyes, and while the guard was still disoriented from the sudden blindness, the Snare-Beast - having been safely positioned on the ceiling - leaped onto the guard's face. He dropped his weapon as he scrambled to pull the previously peaceful - and still somewhat ravenous - arachnid off of him before it could eat his flesh; at which the Snare-Beast was making an solid attempt.

The guard threw the Snare-Beast to the ground, but before he could pull the Snare-Beast's webbing from his eyes, Winn shot him; and his body flew into the air, before landing back down with a satisfying thud.

Lena was still getting her breath back as she dropped the shock-prod, and grabbed the fifth guard's weapon from the floor. 

"I'll go back, get you one like this," Winn said, holding up his new pistol, "that one's lethal."

"So, this guy's still alive?" Lena asked, pointing down at the prone guard.

"Well, yeah; it's a non-lethal-" he began; but before he could finish, Lena had shot the guard, disintegrating him, and then quickly dispatched the other four as well.

"What?" she asked, after seeing Winn's shocked expression, "We don't want them getting back up."

Winn considered this. That was smart. Distasteful... but smart.

"Okay. Come on, let's-" he was interrupted again as they heard guards approaching at both ends of the hallway, and faced away from each other; Lena vaporising the two approaching from the front, while Winn deftly took out those coming up behind them, three shots for three guards.

"Nice shooting," Lena said, "Duck Hunt really paid off."

"I'm not the red shirt," Winn replied, barely above a whisper.

"I'm sure you're not," Lena replied, smirking, "Now, shall we make an exit?"

"Yeah. Let's do this," Winn responded, and held out his arm for a fist-bump. Lena held her new rifle in one hand, and covered his fist with the open palm of the other.

Confused, Winn asked, "Have you never seen a fist-bump before?"

"Oh," she said, pulling her hand away, "I thought you were doing like a rock-paper-scissors thing."

"And you chose _paper?_ " Winn asked, before shaking his head, and pressing forward down the hallway toward freedom.

The two of them - well, the three of them, really, as the Snare-Beast was still following them, helping out whenever it could - made their way to the entrance where they came in, engaging in brief fire-fights whenever they came across any guards, until they were finally at the door.

Almost.

They were sat behind a wall, pinned down by the guards, just thirty feet away from the doors. There were a number of things in their favour: the guards only seemed to be using the non-lethal weapons; on top of that, the baby Snare-Beasts were now in open rebellion against their masters, and so the guards' attention was divided somewhat. But there were still two things preventing Winn and Lena from escaping: they were outnumbered, despite the Snare-Beasts' intervention; and the power-pack on Lena's rifle had died, rendering it useless. She'd compensated by stealing Winn's gun from him.

"You had to shoot every single guy you saw?" Winn half-shouted over the amalgam of noises coming from the guards' new position.

"Yes!" she yelled back, and briefly broke cover to fire Winn's pistol, almost randomly, at the guards; before adding "Do you have any more ideas? Ideas would be good."

"This was _your_ part of the plan! Why don't you have ideas?" he replied.

"I do have an idea! It's just... really stupid!" she said, in-between bursts of gunfire.

"It'll do!" Winn said; and then, as another guard appeared behind their position, "Eight o'clock."

Lena turned, and took out the newly arrived guard, grabbing his rifle after he fell.

"Okay," she said, and she laid out her plan to Winn.

"That really is stupid," Winn said, once she'd finished, pistol back in hand, "You're sending me, aren't you?"

"I'll cover you," she said.

"Yay," he deadpanned, then braced himself, and ran back down the hall, dodging gunfire before Lena could respond with her rifle. It _had_ to be around here somewhere...

 

Outside, in the snow-covered valley, the dawn's light of the red sun began to creep over the horizon. And, at the bottom of the hill, perhaps a mile's walk from where Winn & Lena were fighting for their lives, the transmatter portal sprang to life, and four black-clad humans poured out of the shimmering energy field; followed by an equally black-clad, but vastly more pissed off, Alex Danvers. She took in the view for a moment, and sighed.

"Right, back to Murder Castle, everyone, " she said, exhaustedly, and trudged toward where she'd gone the _last_ time she'd had to mount a rescue mission on this godforsaken rock.

"Do we have tracking data for them?" asked an agent.

"No, Dana," Alex explained, silently cursing Winslow Schott for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past twenty minutes, "But I've got a pretty good idea. Follow me."

The agents did as they were told, but halted immediately as Alex changed her mind, and yelled, "Halt!"

There were vehicles approaching, from the direction of the castle. These weren't ships though. These ran along the ground.

"They can't know we're here already," Alex said, almost to herself, "Take cover."

There wasn't any cover to take. The nearest they had was the portal itself, and it wasn't exactly a good hiding place.

The vehicles - three of them, laden with armed... bipeds - drove into the valley, and turned immediately to head up the hill, bypassing the portal entirely.

"Someone's called for reinforcements..." Alex observed. Something - or _someone_ \- was causing a great deal of trouble up there. Three guesses who.

"Ok, once they're up the hill, we follow them, double time-"

"Boss?" Dana interrupted.

Alex followed Dana's line of sight, and saw that the middle vehicle had broken away from the convoy, and was headed back down the hill toward them.

"Okay. Weapons ready, everybody," she sighed, and drew her pistol.

_One hundred and one._

 

Lena heard the thud of one of the four remaining guards hitting the floor as she ducked back behind cover. This non-lethal gun would not be her first choice, but it was immensely satisfying to use. But it didn't matter. Winn had been gone way too long, so he was very probably dead, which meant she was likely to fall soon too; either to death, or to recapture, where she could then be traded back to the Luthor family for a tidy profit.

She thought about how much she wanted to see her mother's face again, after she'd been taken prisoner by aliens. In all honesty, she'd rather choose death.

She took a deep breath, composed herself, and leaped to her feet - 

_IIIIOOOOOOOORRRRR!!!!_

Lena dropped back down to the ground as she heard that unworldly scream. Finally.

The guards yelled at each other frantically. The gunfire continued, but none of it was headed over her head anymore. They had more important things to worry about.

" **SUSTENANCE!**!" Winn yelled, as the roaring continued. Lena risked looking out over her cover, and saw him emerge from behind the guards, atop the BIG Snare-Beast - now freed from its muzzle and shock collar - being thrown around like a bull rider.

"I HATE THIS PLAN!" he screamed. The Beast was taking serious fire, but was so large it was immune to the non-lethal weapons, and rushed the first guard it could reach; taking up on its hind legs, and biting down on the guard's head.

"Stop complaining, it's fine," Lena yelled back, and picked off the two remaining guards; before clambering over to the massive spider, which had finished eating the guard's head, and was working its way through the rest of the body.

" **KIND COMPANION! KIND COMPANION!** " Winn bellowed as the Beast groused at Lena for interrupting its meal, "Get in the trailer."

Lena pulled supplies out of the barely-still-attached trailer, the steel harness twisted from where the Beast had thrown it about. "Can you get down and help me with this?" she asked.

"If you know how to dismount this thing, I'm all ears," Winn said, thankful that the Beast had calmed down to feast.

Lena emptied the trailer, except for a large metal disc, maybe five feet wide - concave, with a hinge on the end - which she left inside, along with her rifle; then ran to the main door to open it. "How did you even get on it?" she asked.

"Wasn't easy," Winn replied, examining the door, "it's gonna be a tight fit."

"Yes, it is. Hug your spider close," she said, and pulled the lever for the door.

The door opened, and the infra-red light of magic hour poured in. The Beast roared again, and quickly - for more quickly than you might expect for a creature of its size - squeezed its way through the door, Winn emitting an undignified scream as it did so. 

Lena rushed to the back of the trailer. It was headed to the doorway at an askew angle, and was clearly going to get stuck. She shoved it, as hard as she could, to straighten it out; she got it most of the way, enough that it scraped the side of the doorway as the Beast pulled it along.

Once the trailer was through, the Beast took off in a hurry, letting out roar after roar. Lena had to break into a run just to keep up with it, her pace weighed down by the snow.

"SLOW IT DOWN!" she screamed. But Winn didn't respond, and the trailer was pulling further and further away.

And then, the baby Snare-Beast popped up from inside the trailer; and webbed her, right in the torso. She immediately fell forward, the strength of the web dragging her along at the same speed as the Beast; but no, slightly faster, as the Snare-Beast was working its hardest to pull her in. She grabbed onto the webbing, and pulled herself towards the moving trailer.

The Beast ran past two tracked vehicles, both headed towards the outpost, and let out another, almighty roar:

_IIIIIIIIOOOOOOOORRRRR!!!!_

Which was then answered by an even louder, deeper pitched roar from the morning desert:

_EEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHRRRR!!!!!_

The Beast came to a stop, and exchanged roars with the as-yet-unseen creature. Lena, who had managed to grab on to the trailer while it was still moving, got to her feet, and dropped herself inside.

"You okay back there?" Winn shouted.

She looked down at herself. She was covered in snow, and her chest hurt from the friction, but she didn't feel injured.

"It's fine."

The Snare-Beast cut her loose from the web, and scuttled over to her. "Thanks," she said to it, quietly.

At the front, Winn was starting to get the hang of riding the Beast. It was deafening, but he could manage. But he still didn't know how he was going to get down.

"WINN!" Lena yelled from behind him.

He turned, and saw that the transports that they'd run past had turned around, and were gaining ground.

" **Instruction: Advance!** " he said. The Beast roared again, and complied, picking up speed very quickly.

"KEEP IT STEADY!" he heard.

"HOW?" he yelled back. The transports were still gaining, but not as much as before

Lena held her rifle as steadily as she could, took aim at the driver of the first transport, and fired. She hit the driver, forcing the transport into a skid, and bringing it to a stop. The second transport had to slow down to steer around it.

The Beast was running at full speed now. The trailer hit a rock, and the weakened harness finally snapped; sending Lena, the smaller Snare-Beast, and the metal disc into the snow. Freed, the Beast found another burst of speed, and Winn's ability to hold onto to the creature reached its limit. He, too was thrown to the ground, some fifty feet away from the trailer. The Beast roared once again.

 

"Is that a GIANT SPIDER?!" Alex asked, looking out to the top of the hill.

Dana looked up from the otherwise-incomprehensible controls of the transport, its former occupants now spread out in the snow.

"Maybe it's just really close?" she said, not at all seriously.

"Figure that out. NOW," Alex ordered, and turned to see _another_ transport approaching from the castle.

_One hundred and thirty eight._

 

Lena got to her feet first, as the Beast disappeared from view, and did her best to lift up the metal disc. It was so heavy. She called out, "WINN!"

Winn slowly got to his feet. He wasn't ever doing _that_ again.

"What? What are we doing now?" he asked, as he saw her dragging the big hunk of metal toward the edge of the hill.

"We're doing to slide down the hill on this. You know, like a sled," she told him.

He grabbed the disc, and they pulled it along together. "Not really," he said.

"You've never been sledding before?" she asked.

"I've never seen snow before, Lena. Remember?" he replied.

"Yes. Yes, of course," she said. The disc seemed to get much lighter in Winn's hands. He looked back, and saw that the Snare-Beast had picked up the dragging edge, carrying it.

"Just sit behind me, it'll be fine- Oh, no."

They looked down the hill toward the portal, and saw a number of figures standing around a transport, weapons raised. 

Winn waved down to them; "No, it's Alex- HEY ALEX!" he shouted.

"How can you tell?" Lena asked.

"We don't really have any other options; plus, I can feel the rage from here," he replied, as they dropped the sled down on the edge, "It's very focused, and directed at me personally; not like these guys-"

The second transport had caught up with them. It pulled to a stop, before there was another roar, and the Beast - having returned from wherever it had gone - rammed the transport from the side, shaking it. The beast pulled one of the troops out, and flung him into the distance, before ramming the transport again.

"-with these guys it's more generic."

Lena sat down on the sled. "Come on!" she cried.

Winn sat down behind her, tentatively, his legs splayed out around hers, as the sled wobbled on the edge of the hill. As the Beast rammed the transport for the third time, he saw the smaller Snare-Beast running toward them.

"Ready?" Lena asked.

"But what about-" he began to ask, but Lena pushed them off the edge of the hill with the butt of her rifle before he could finish.

Riding the Beast had been frightening; but it was, at least theoretically, under his control. _This_ , on the other hand, was merely physics. He couldn't believe people let children do this. He held on tight to Lena's waist for safety, inconveniently aware of how much of an illusion that safety really was.

Lena lurched to the side, and him along with her; and the sled shifted and turned as their weight did, slowing as it did.

"Lean back!" Lena commanded.

Winn followed her command, and as he did, she leaned to the other side; so they were now headed toward the portal again. As they got closer, they saw a second transport approach from the right, as Alex and the others began firing upon it.

"Lean left!" Lena ordered. Winn followed suit. They turned, precariously; and as they did, Lena prepared herself to shoot.

"Lean right!" 

They turned back, and Lena drew a bead on one of the new arrivals, knocking him off his feet.

They repeated the process a couple more times, to no avail, before coming to a stop at the bottom of the hill, right in the middle of a fire fight.

Lena got up first, strafing the assailants with gunfire, as she ran to the portal. She reached Alex first.

"Glad you could join-" Lena began, before Alex grabbed her by the collar; and in a singular motion, swung her around, dumping her ass down in the snow.

Alex looked down upon her, murder her in her eyes, and yelled, "STAY ON THE GROUND!" before spinning back around to keep shooting at their new attackers.

"How you doin', Alex?" Winn asked, ducking feebly as he ran towards the portal's control device.

"I was doing a lot better half-an-hour ago! Now do something useful and get us home!"

Winn took the tablet from one of the agents, and started working. He looked down at Lena in the snow. Winn didn't know how many things she was really afraid of; but from the look on her face, Alexandra Danvers had just made the top of the list.

"Don't worry about the yelling!" he told her, "it just means she hasn't killed you yet."

They could hear screaming in the distance. The Beast - outnumbered by the crews of other two transports, the ones that had made it up the hill - wasn't likely to last much longer.

The portal opened, finally. Alex grabbed Lena by the collar, and pulled her to her feet.

"GO!" she barked, and shoved Lena toward the portal. Two of the other agents swiftly followed her through.

Alex took the last of the transport crew down, and made her way over to Winn.

"Ma'am," Dana interrupted, "There's something coming down the hill."

Alex and Winn both looked, and saw the Snare-Beast rolling and leaping and running toward them, just as fast as it could.

"Hey! Little buddy!" Winn said, and Alex turned to him like he was insane; "No, it's cool, it's friendly. It can come with us."

" _Are you crazy?_ " she asked, "Have you _seen_ how big those things get?"

At that moment, the deeper, louder roar filled the valley; and, at the top of the hill, its owner appeared. It slammed its mandibles down on one of the guards, swallowing him whole; then picked up one of the transports and threw it, sending it soaring over Winn and Alex's heads and into the distance, perhaps by several miles.

It was at least ten times the size of the Beast. Any guards at the top of the hill that could run, did.

"Okay, it CANNOT come with us," Winn admitted, and Alex grabbed him by the vest, and pulled him through the portal.

 

_The Snare-Beast ran. It couldn't not run. The Kind Companions had gone through the purple light, and it had to follow._

_It was so close._

_Ten lengths. Five._

_The purple light disappeared at two._

_The Snare-Beast stood in the snow. It ran backward, and forward, where the purple light had been, but there was nothing._

_The Kind Companions had gone._

_Alone, the Snare-Beast considered what to do next._

_It was hungry._

_It ran over to where one of the many prone bipeds was, and started to nibble._


	8. Aslan

Winn emerged through the portal, as his colleagues were entering the camaraderie phase that followed successful missions: there was joy, to be sure, but there was often a darker cloud above it; sadness at losing one of their own, or in this case, anger at having to go rescue an idiot and his friend at 3 o'clock in the morning. It wasn't the worst thing a DEO agent had ever done, but Winn still suspected he would need to introduce 'sorry I got kidnapped on an alien planet' Rice Krispies treats into everyone's immediate future.

Winn had seen the quiet post-mission celebrations before, but he'd never been part of them... until a now less-tidy-than-it-had-been pony tail of jet black hair whipped him in the face.

"Uh-okay," he said, not really sure where to put his hands as Lena hugged him, although he was pretty sure he should put his pistol down.

She released him, still somewhat startled, but otherwise brimming with glee. "We made it!" she exclaimed.

"We did! And it all went surprisingly okay! I mean, it didn't go entirely according to plan; but-" Winn holstered his newfound pistol, and turned around to find Alex, "-we escaped, we all came back alive, _and_ we all get to not have our fingers broken. Yay us." 

Alex silently made it clear that she was still on the fence about the whole fingers thing.

Winn pressed on, "Now, do we _absolutely_ have to tell J'onn about this? I mean, we can just keep this between you, me, and... every single other person in the building, right?"

"Agent Schott!" J'onn J'onzz bellowed from the corner of the room, and every face turned his way.

"And he's already here," Winn said, dejected.

Alex - who was starting to lighten up now that the schadenfreude had kicked in - scoffed, " _Someone_ set off a massive psychic energy generator about, say, half-an-hour before your little message played out. Woke him up."

"He's a telepath?" Lena interjected.

Alex's eyes widened slightly with fear, before answering Lena's question with an unstable "...No."

"Yeah, she does that," Winn said, returning Alex's schadenfreude for the first, and probably only, time of his DEO career, "it's fun."

J'onn continued, striding towards Winn with heavy, deliberate footfalls. "Do you mind explaining to me what the hell you were doing allowing an unauthorized civilian into this facility, and allowing her the use of top-secret alien technology?" 

As J'onn finished his question, every eye that had turned to him turned back to Winn.

"Right! Yes!" Winn clapped his hands together, in a mixture of enthusiasm and prayer; and said, way too loudly, "First off: you'll be pleased to hear that our unscheduled security test was a resounding success."

"Security test?" asked J'onn, skeptically.

"Success?" asked Alex, even more so.

"Yes! Lena here-" Winn said, as though it wasn't obvious to everyone who she was, "-was kind enough to be our 'intruder' for the night, and we managed to uncover some key exploits."

"You know, I was happy to do it," Lena chimed in, in the tone of voice game show contestants use when they aren't going through to the final round, "Of course, I'm always happy to help the DEO in any way I can."

"Yeah, so now that we've identified the holes in our security, we can go to work plugging them-" Winn continued, before J'onn cut him off.

"Do you think I'm a _fool_ , Agent Schott?" J'onn asked.

"No, sir, absolutely not," Winn replied instantly. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lena glancing over at him, stifling a giggle; until J'onn directed his gaze towards _her_.

"Ms. Luthor?"

"Oh, no," she said, genially dismissive of the idea; until J'onn raised an eyebrow at her, when she followed up, more seriously, with, "I mean, of course not..." and then, as Alex quietly _but deliberately_ stepped into her field of vision, "...sir."

"Good. Because the only holes we seem to have in our security right now are _the two of you_."

J'onn hadn't raised his voice. It would have been better if he'd raised his voice. Winn squirmed uncomfortably; Lena, on the other hand, had never squirmed before, but was adapting well to this advanced class she'd found herself in.

J'onn pressed on. 

"Now, what exactly made you think I would have authorised such a security test - _which I did not_ \- and what exactly did it have to do with compromising our entire operation, or forcing everyone here to endanger their lives performing a rescue operation?"

"That's a very good question, sir, and I can explain..." Winn stammered out. 

And then... he couldn't. 

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but not one word of explanation could pass his lips. He could feel every pair of eyes staring at him, as he just stood there in silence. He turned to Lena out of desperation. 

"Don't look at me; this was your idea," she said. 

Winn didn't so much hear the groan from the audience surrounding him as much as feel it, like an invisible force. He went back over the events of the afternoon in his mind, and had to admit defeat.

"Yeah, I- I- I- _did_... do that, but..." And again, the words failed him. From the look of the agents around him, the Rice Krispies treats would probably have to get upgraded to cupcakes.

"I'm waiting," J'onn said, expectantly.

"Me too," Winn instantly replied. J'onn sighed, angrily.

"Could we have the room, please?" he asked the surrounding agents; who then, begrudgingly obeyed. They'd clearly been hoping to see the show. "Alex, can you please give Ms Luthor a medical examination?"

Alex glanced Lena up and down. "She's fine," she deadpanned.

"Good. Please escort her from the building," he said.

"Come on, Princess," Alex shoved Lena forward, making her stumble as she was marched out. As they were approaching the door, J'onn added, "Take her to the lobby, but don't release her. Not just yet. Not until I say."

Winn watched them leave, a little worried. Lena had gotten better treatment on Slaver's Moon.

Once everyone was out the door, Winn relaxed a little. But not much.

"I'm still waiting, Agent Schott," J'onn informed him.

Winn walked over to one of the workbenchs, and laid his new pistol down on it. He was going to have fun dismantling that later. Maybe.

"I know," he said, quietly.

"You know I can't let you out of this without an explanation," J'onn said.

Winn knew that too. Alex or Kara, maybe; but not him. But they were heroes. They'd earned it.

"Can't you just... I don't know, read my mind?" Winn asked, leaning against the bench.

"Actually, no," J'onn said, and strolled over to sit beside him. "The signal-to-noise ratio on your mind actually gives you an immunity against my telepathy. You'll be giving an intelligence briefing, but your brain will be doing five minutes on why Tatiana Maslany deserves an Emmy."

Winn hesitated, trying not to take the bait, and failed spectacularly.

"You understand that she plays _every_ character-"

" _You don't need to convince me, Agent Schott_ ," J'onn said, desperately trying get Winn to stay on topic; then he turned away, and said, so quietly that Winn would never be sure if he really heard him, "The woman's an incredible talent."

He turned back to face Winn.

"Now, take your time. Tell me why you did this."

"I didn't _do_ this," Winn argued, "I mean, I did, but it's not like I said 'hey, let's go to Slaver's Moon'. In fact, I specifically told Lena that we weren't going."

"And yet, somehow, you went anyway," J'onn said.

"She wouldn't take no for an answer!" Winn said, as he leaped up from the bench, and started pacing. He thought better when he was pacing.

"Don't put this on her, Agent Schott. Ms. Luthor is not in a position to make requests from you. The question of what answers she would or would not accept is largely irrelevant. You did this because _you_ wanted to." There was a hint of fury in J'onn's voice, but no more than that.

But he was right. 

"And if I'm going to allow you to keep working here, I'm going to need to know why."

Winn stood still, silently, and J'onn kept the silence with him. For all Winn knew, he could have been standing there for ten minutes before he spoke.

"You see, the thing is, you have to see this from Lena's perspective." 

J'onn's face gave nothing away. "Go on."

"She has no family. _None_. Dad's dead, her real mom's dead; there's only two people left; one's the leader of an anti-alien terrorist cell, and the other one's literally the worst human alive. 

"She's only got two real friends, that she doesn't know are actually the _same_ friend; and given how weird that is, I don't know how much that qualifies as having any real friends at all. 

"All she has, all she _really_ has, is her work. That's all.

"So then there's that." he said, gesturing toward the circle behind him.

"The transmat portal?" J'onn asked.

"Not that one. The one she built," Winn said, taking a deep breath, "It is... the _most_ important thing she will ever do. That _anyone_ will ever do. Ever." 

"She could finish curing cancer tomorrow - _finish_ curing cancer? Like she put _the cure for cancer_ down because she was distracted by other things?" he said, looking around at the half-finished fragments of his own mind he'd left lying around, "She could finish the cure for cancer tomorrow, and it will _still_ be a distant second to this. 'Cause, you know, letting rich people live basically forever is great and all, but it won't do us much good if we can't find a way to get off this rock.

"It's not just Nobel prize work. It's beyond Nobel prize. This is 'naming Earth's first off-world colony after you, get an entire wing of the Smithsonian dedicated to your life' type stuff.

"And we're taking it away from her. Telling her that she can't have what she's earned. That's she's only entitled to what we're willing to give her."

"This technology is too dangerous to be left in private hands, Agent Schott. I think that was demonstrated fairly clearly," J'onn interjected.

" _I know that._ But, you know, I doubt that'll be much comfort to her in five years when NASA or DARPA or whoever 'announces' that _they_ developed this thing, and we've turned her into the Rosalind Franklin of space travel," Winn told him, holding back tears, "That doesn't sound like us, J'onn. That isn't who we should be. 

"That doesn't sound like Truth, Justice, _or_ the American Way."

"It's not. But sometimes, it's just what's necessary," J'onn said, "And you still know who Rosalind Franklin is."

"Well, that doesn't sound like a very good argument," Winn said.

"Perhaps," J'onn replied, "What about you?"

"What about me?" Winn asked, puzzled.

"You don't consider yourself one of her friends?"

" _I'm the guy that's taking it away!_ I'm the guy that walked into her office and told her, 'no, you will forever be associated with murderers and sociopaths. We had a meeting.' Big opportunity for me, in fact. And you know what else? She _let_ me. She just... accepted her fate."

"That isn't what you did," J'onn said, resting a hand on Winn's shoulder.

"It feels like I did," he replied.

"Which is why you decided to give her something else instead?" J'onn asked.

Winn sniffed loudly. He'd never been a particularly dignified crier.

"It was only supposed to be five minutes. And it's such a small thing. It cost us nothing," he said.

J'onn raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, almost nothing," Winn continued, "And she... had fun. Is that such a bad thing?"

"No. But you put everyone here tonight at risk, and I can't let it go without disciplinary action," J'onn said, apologetically.

"I know. This was my fault, and I'll accept whatever punishment you give. Just-"

J'onn stopped.

"Please... don't wipe her brain," Winn quietly pleaded.

J'onn rolled his eyes. "I have no intention of wiping her brain, Agent Schott. I would no more wipe Lena Luthor's brain than I would yours."

Winn switched from apologetic to apprehensive. "Um..."

" _I'm not going to wipe your brain, Winn._ "

"Okay. Good to know," he said, smiling for the first time in what had felt like forever, even if it had only been a few minutes.

"How long until the operation at L-Corp is finished?" J'onn asked.

Winn shrugged. "Ten days? Three weeks, at the most."

"Good. Then you're suspended for the next month."

"Suspended?" Somehow, Winn was still shocked.

"For a month. With pay. Alex will finish up the L-Corp project while you're gone," J'onn insisted.

"Come on, at least let me finish the job-" Winn argued, even though he knew he was already getting off light.

"No. Agent Danvers is cut out for this kind of work in ways that you are not," J'onn explained, tersely; "This is where her value lies. You have other talents. If you want to continue to associate with Ms. Luthor, you're going to have to do so on your own time. 

"Besides, when was the last time you had a day off?"

"I don't know... sometime before the election?" Winn said.

"President... _Marsdin's_ election?" J'onn replied, "She's been President for nearly three years, Winn."

"Yeah, but I'm not really good at downtime, you know; and when you go away, no-one can really cover for you, so your e-mails stack up-"

" _One month,_ " J'onn repeated, "And no Guardian, either. If I see another one of Mr. Olsen's article's before then, I'm going to have a conversation with him that he will not enjoy." 

"I'll let him know," Winn said.

"Now, go on. Go downstairs, and tell Alex that Ms. Luthor's free to go," J'onn said.

"Thank you, sir," Winn sighed with relief, and made his way to the door.

" _After_ you go into the system and remove Ms. Luthor's profile from the security database," J'onn ordered.

Winn interrupted his exit, and turned back to him.

"Guess you'll always need me for the IT help-desk stuff?" Winn asked, half-rhetorically.

"Of course, Agent Schott," J'onn said, "Nobody does it better."

J'onn's expression gave nothing away; but Winn was so tired, he was left with only one burning thought.

_Signal-to-noise ratio, my ass._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this was going to be the last chapter; but I got to this point and saw that it was chapter length, so you're getting a chapter nine as well; which will be up in a few days.
> 
> And remember, comments are always welcome.


	9. Is This A Blessing? Or Is It A Curse?

"So, Kara tells me that you're getting married?"

Alex had figured that Luthors were good at Small Talk. They'd have to be. A lifetime of balls, galas, cotillions, symposia, dinners, mixers, and other events with free wine would make mingling a necessary life skill. And, infamously, they were also good at Big Talk: political speeches, academic lectures, 'Soon my Electro-Ray will destroy Metropolis!', that kind of thing.

What they _weren't_ good at, based on the example stood beside her, was Medium Talk; which was the only one of the three at which Alex excelled - and that had made the last fifteen minutes kind of tense; although, honestly, Alex was happy to keep it that way.

But she wasn't so happy that there were questions.

"That's right," she said.

"Well, congratulations!" Lena replied, with all the sincerity in the world, "What's the groom's name?"

"Margaret," Alex answered, deliberately.

"She sounds lovely," Lena said, with barely a pause. "Have you set a date yet?"

"Okay!" Winn said loudly, as he crossed the lobby, "We are free to go!"

"We?" Alex asked him, pointing to Lena, "Did J'onn say-"

"J'onn said. We can go," he answered.

"Are you fired?" Alex asked, more hopefully than he would have liked.

"Suspended, one month, with pay," Winn admitted.

"You're getting a _vacation?_ " she asked, in disbelief.

"Don't remind me," he replied.

"Martian's pet," she said.

"Martian?" Lena queried, raising an eyebrow.

For the second time in half-an-hour, Alex resembled a deer in headlights. "...No."

Winn decided to ignore it, and carried on, "Well, the good news is, while I'm gone, Alex will be taking over for me at L-Corp."

"Well, I'm sure that will be... productive," Lena said, as diplomatically as she could for someone who was clearly terrified.

"Yes. Productive," Alex said, with limited enthusiasm.

There was an awful silence, which Lena broke by saying, "Well, my driver's on his way, so..."

"I'll wait with you," Winn said.

"It was nice to meet you again, Agent Danvers," Lena said to Alex, and held out her hand, which Alex shook, roughly.

"Be seein' you," she said.

Lena nodded, and made her way out the lobby doors. Winn shot Alex a 'be nice' look as he followed her.

Outside, it felt like it was going to be a hot day; magic hour was finding a way to turn itself into dawn, and the city was waking up. But you could still see the stars, as barely as ever; the light pollution from both the sun and the city working to drown them them out. Lena stared up at them as she strolled toward the sidewalk.

"It's not there," she said, half to herself as much as to Winn, "it's the wrong season."

"I know," he said, "You know, don't worry too much about Alex. She'll warm up to you, just as soon as, you know, she starts believing she's smarter than you."

Lena turned away from the stars, and back down at him with... not disdain as such, but certainly not congeniality.

"Well, that doesn't seem likely, does it?" she said, sarcastically.

"No, no, it's fine; all you gotta do is let her win one every once in a while, you know, take it easy on her-"

Lena _looked_ at him, and it told him everything he needed to know.

"-Yeah, she's never warming up to you. Sorry," he said.

She grinned. "It's okay," she said, "I'm sorry about your suspension. A month, that's pretty harsh."

"Nah," he said dismissively, "it'll be like, three days, and then they'll have to call me back in 'cause there's a pending global nuclear holocaust, or something."

"Here's hoping," she said, jovially.

"Not really. It's not really something you wanna have to deal with a second time," he said. As he watched her silently take this on board, he continued, "And, you know, lucky for you, I'm not going to need to hit you up for a job; so, that's a good-"

"How exactly is that lucky for me?" she interrupted, incredulous.

"Well, you know, I don't imagine your IT department has a vacancy-"

"Team Leader, Special Projects," she interrupted again, stopping dead in her tracks.

"What?" he asked, turning as she stopped.

She pondered a little as she spoke; "Have your own team, a discretionary budget... basically, you'll do whatever you want; and occasionally, I'll ask you to do something that might turn a profit. I think we'll start you at... two hundred. Plus benefits, of course."

She was genial, but she was serious. Winn could see the question right in the front of his mind, but it was clearly had a landmine under it - it _had_ to have a landmine under it - so he tiptoed around it.

"That's... the job you would offer me if I needed one?" he inquired, tentatively.

"No, Winn, that's the job I am offering you _right now_ ," she explained, carefully.

Winn wanted to laugh, he really did.

"You're not serious?"

"What?" Lena asked, "You're smart, creative, you're incredibly capable; why wouldn't I hire you?"

Winn was stunned. This was... he couldn't...

"You're not glorified tech support, Winn, or whatever it was that you said before. And you deserve better than a job that makes you feel like you are," she continued.

Winn, still reeling, risked a question; "Two hundred... thousand?" he asked.

"Yes, Winn."

"Over how many years?"

"One year, Winn; that's... pretty normal, for a salary."

Winn didn't know what to say. This was the most generous thing anyone had ever offered him; probably the most generous thing that anyone _would_ ever offer him. It was-

"No," Winn said; and past versions of himself, including the one from about three hours ago, screamed at him inside his own head.

"Two-fifty," Lena responded, instantly; "I'm not going to three hundred."

"It's not about the money," he said, even though he still wasn't quite clear himself on what it _was_ about.

"Then what? You don't enjoy working with me?" she asked, teasing.

"No, I like working with you a lot; I just... I don't want to work _for_ you," he said; and as he did, he became satisfied with his own answer. "I don't think it'd be nearly as much fun."

"Besides, they don't actually pay me to work here. I'd work here for free. They pay me, so that I don't have to..."

"Take jobs like mine?" she finished.

"Pretty much," he said.

"Fair enough. There's a lot to be said for saving the world," she conceded.

"Yeah," he replied, "but there is something you can do for me."

"What's that?" she asked.

"Bond. You never answered my question," he said. Lena rolled her eyes a little. "It's a small thing. Come on, you can tell me."

She thought for a moment, then said, "Okay."

"You're right, Bond is a sexist jackass, he always has been, and he never changes, but..." she paused, more for effect than anything else, "the thing is, _he never changes._ In all the movies, Bond never changes, the plot never changes, the villains never change - I mean, they do, but not by much. The only thing is all the movies that ever really changes, is the Bond girls.

"So there's this sixty-year old, twenty-odd movie series that's really just an indulgent male fantasy from start to finish, and the only thing that ever really matters from movie to movie... is the women.

"And I think that's fascinating."

"That's... very cool," Winn said.

"Isn't it?" Lena replied.

"Now... is that the real reason; or do you just like them, and you made that up later to justify it?" Winn probed.

Lena opened her mouth to respond, but was distracted as her town car pulled up a few yards from them.

"Perhaps next time," she said, "it's been fun, Agent Schott."

"The privilege was mine, Ms. Luthor," he said, as he held up his arm in a fist. She looked down at it, smiled, and brought her open palm down on top of it.

Winn smiled. "Still going with paper, huh?"

"Well, if you will leave yourself open..." she said, releasing his fist.

" **Kind Companion?** , Lena asked him, sincerely, in the little Thanagarian she knew.

" **Kind Companion** ," Winn confirmed.

She smiled, widely, and slowly stepped towards her car.

"You know," Winn said to her, as she opened the rear door, "You could come and work for us. Chewed out by Space Dad, been threatened by Alex... it's almost like you're one of the family.

"I mean, you won't make Forbe's Thirty Under Thirty again, but we _do_ have Chocos in the vending machines. Sometimes," he finished, slightly puzzled. Where did they all go?

"I'll bear that in mind," Lena said, climbing into the car.

"i mean, after all..." Winn said, as he begged himself not to follow through with his next thought. It was too cheesy. He couldn't possibly...

Lena popped an eyebrow from the car. "What?"

Yeah, he definitely was that cheesy.

" _Nobody dooooes it better..._ " he burst into song from the sidewalk. It was stupid, but... to hell with it, he had _pipes_ , dammit.

" _Makes me feel saaad fooor the rest..._ " Lena rolled her eyes hard as soon as she realised what he was doing.

"Goodnight, Winn!" she yelled for the car, and closed the door, as gently as she could.

" _Nobody does it, half as good as youuuu..._ \- morning, sir," he carried on; greeting an old man walking his dog, as the car slowly pulled away.

" _Baby, you're the-_ " and then, an idea popped into Winn's head, and he stopped. And then he froze.

_Oh, no._

He watched, horrified, as Lena's car made it to the end of the street; and then turned the corner, out of sight.

_OH... NO._

It wasn't a new idea. He'd had it before, he recognised; months before now, just after the charity gala, when they'd first met. But all she'd done then was repair an incredibly advanced piece of experimental technology while wearing a ten thousand dollar work of art like she'd been born in it; it had been easy to shut the idea out of his mind.

But now the idea was back, at the head of an army; and it had already stormed the gates and broken through the castle walls, so now the idea was sitting in the antechamber, sipping victoriously on the good wine, smiling - Good Lord, that _terrific_ smile - and ready to negotiate his surrender.

The idea had already won. He just hadn't known he'd been fighting it.

Had J'onn known? Of course J'onn had known. That's what telepaths do, Winn. They know things.

But... they were friends. They'd said the words to each other, not two minutes ago. **Kind companion** , that's what they'd said.

Which is why he couldn't believe he was doing this. Not again.

Why? They were friends. Why did he have to ruin it? Did his heart not remember the last time this happened? His _brain_ remembered. His brain remember all too clearly. His brain remembered sitting in his apartment eating 25¢ ramen noodles, listening to Sam Cooke on loop, and thinking about how he'd die alone.

And those had been the _good_ days.

And... they were _friends_. Could not he just, one time - one _goddamned time_ \- have a friend where it didn't end up getting really weird? Where he didn't end up pining for them constantly; or have to build them body armour, so they wouldn't get themselves killed; or have to locate wherever the hell their pod had gone in space, because _who the hell gets lost while on autopilot - TWICE?_

And... it wasn't just that they were friends. 

Lena was his friend. 

She was _his friend_. 

No one else had ever had to vouch for him. 

No one else had ever had to let her know he was 'okay'. 

No one else had ever had to take her aside, and tell her that, yeah, Winn's a little odd, but he's great once you get to know him; as he knew - they never talked about it, but he knew - Kara had done with so many others before.

And Lena didn't _need_ him, not like his other friends did. There were no tasks to be done, no deliverables to be delivered. The world would not stop turning if he did not come through for her. Anything he could do for her, she easily could do for herself. Whatever relationship he and Lena had, it was because of _him_ , and not what he could do for her; and he'd managed it all by himself, just like he had with Kara.

And Kara. He remembered how it was before - before his Dad escaped, and he'd kissed her, and the equilibrium between them had been destroyed - and how it had never been the same since, no matter how hard he'd tried.

He wasn't ready for that to happen with Lena, not yet.

He wasn't ready for this to change.

He wasn't ready to screw it all up with her, just because he was lonely.

And he was pretty sure Lena wouldn't exactly be thrilled about it either.

He was... this was ridiculous. 

They were _friends_. 

It couldn't possibly be this big of a deal. All he'd done with Lena was gotten to know her, researched her hobbies, promised to make her a mixtape, risked his job and his life to take her on an adventure on a far-off planet, advocated her case for being one of the greatest human beings that had ever lived, and serenaded her in public. He could totally walk this back, right?

_Right?_

Okay, so no, he couldn't walk this back... but he could distract himself. Distractions! That was it! There were lots of things to avoid the idea, and the inevitable heart-break that would ensue. He could easily just throw himself into... his... work...

_Goddammit._

It wasn't a big deal. It _wasn't_ a big deal. It was just a crush. A crush on a woman who was out of his league by every conceivable metric, and possibly by some discrete variables as well. This was never going to go anywhere. He just needed to get over it.

And he _could_ get over it. He was the reigning champion of Getting Over Things. He'd done it before, certainly. Admittedly, last time he'd been rejected, humiliated, kidnapped, shot at, blown up, had to go into self-imposed exile and _then_ gotten over it; but hopefully that was all specific to that particular incident, and not a necessary part of his process.

But he could get over it. As long as no-one else found out. It was imperative that no-one else find out. He wouldn't be able to take the humiliation if they found out.

J'onn knew, of course, but he wouldn't tell anyone. And Lena _probably_ suspected - she was a genius, she must have least suspected - but something told him she wouldn't bring it up if he didn't.

Him; J'onn; Lena, maybe. No-one else knew, and no-one else would ask. 

It was going to be okay. He could do this. Everything was going to be just fi-

"You know," Alex said from behind him, her muffled voice so close he could feel cookie crumbs spray over his shoulder, "You're gonna have a hard time topping this on a second date."

He'd had forgotten about Alex again. 

He daren't turn around. He could feel her smirk from here, just as he could hear the rest of her cookie being shoveled into her mouth.

Alex knew. And while she could be great at keeping secrets, it was directly tied to her interest in doing so.

So Maggie would know by breakfast. It would be an open secret at the DEO by the end of the day. James would know by the end of the week. And, eventually, someone would sit down with Kara Danvers, investigative journalist, and explain all to her; since, God bless her, she could easily spot if you were trapped in a fire fifty miles away, but sometimes had trouble with things that were happening right in front of her face.

And that was it. 

Everyone was going to know.

He was so _completely_ screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _WINN AND LENA WILL RETURN IN 'YOU DON'T ONLY LIVE TWICE'..._
> 
>  
> 
> Okay, some of you _might_ be upset with me about this, but just to make it clear: Winn isn't happy about it, either. And it's not about to get better for him in part two.
> 
> And for those of you who may be wondering, the chapter title is take from 'It Just Won't Quit', originally recorded by Pandora's Box, music and lyrics by Jim Steinman; and Lena's unifying theory of Bond is paraphrased from Film Crit Hulk's four part essay on the subject, which is well worth a read.
> 
> Comments are, as always, welcome; and I hope to see you for part two.


End file.
